Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, Vol. 28, No.

6, 1998
Spontaneous Play in Children with Autism: A
Reappraisal
Sarah Libby,
1,5
Stuart Powell,
2
David Messer,
3
and Rita Jordan
4
Much controversy remains regarding the ability of children with autism to engage in spon-
taneous play. In this study children with autism, Down syndrome and typical development
with verbal mental ages of approximately 2 years were assessed for play abilities at three
data points. Even in this group of children with autism, who had relatively low verbal mental
ages, symbolic play skills were not totally absent. However, it was possible to distinguish
their pattern of play behaviors from the other two groups. Consequentially, it is argued that
there are unusual features in early spontaneous play in children with autism and these atypi-
cal patterns are not restricted to their difficulties in the production of symbolic play. Such
differences in early spontaneous play raise interesting questions about the etiology of autism,
the direction of future research, and the theoretical models that can account for the condi-
tion.
INTRODUCTION
Interest in the pretend play of children with
autism has burgeoned over the past decade (e.g.,
Baron-Cohen, 1987; Jarrold, Boucher, & Smith,
1993, 1994, 1996; Leslie, 1987, 1994; Lewis &
Boucher, 1988, 1995). Despite this research the ex-
tent of the difficulties in pretend play experienced
by this population and the ontogenesis of this deficit
remain enigmatic. Furthermore, the focus on the pre-
tend play of children with autism has resulted in a
failure to investigate more elementary play skills.
Pretend play is used here as an umbrella terms
for two subcategories of play behavior, functional
1
Department of Clinical Psychology, University of East Anglia,
Norwich, NR4 7TJ, United Kingdom.
2
Division of Education, University of Hertfordshire, Watford
Campus, Aldenham, Watford, Hertfordshire, WD2 8AT, U.K.
3
Division of Psychology, University of Hertfordshire, Hatfield
Campus, Hertfordshire, AL10 9AB, U.K.
4
School of Education, University of Birmingham, Birmingham,
B30 1TQ, U.K.
5
Address all correspondence to Sarah Libby, University of East
Anglia, Norwich, NR4 7TJ, United Kingdom.
and symbolic play. Some authors have used pretend
play and symbolic play as synonymous (e.g., Leslie,
1987). However we believe that pretend play may in-
volve processes that are not symbolic and as a result
we use the term to describe both functional and sym-
bolic play. Functional play can be defined as using
an object as its function denotes, even if it is a mini-
aturized version of this object, for example, pushing
a toy car along the carpet making a "brmmm" noise
(Ungerer & Sigman, 1981). Symbolic play appears
later, from 20 months, and involves treating an object
or situation as if it is something else. Leslie (1987)
described three forms of symbolic play: (a) object
substitutionusing an object as if it is something else
(e.g., using a brick as some soap), (b) attribution of
false propertiesattributing properties to an object as
if they exist (e.g., pretending a doll is ill), and (c)
reference to an absent objectmaking a reference to
something as if it is present (e.g., driving a truck over
an invisible bridge).
Children with autism tend to produce rigid
stereotyped behavior toward toys and objects (Atlas,
1990), and there is a paucity of pretend play. How-
ever, the extent of this deficit remains unclear. While
487
0162-3257/98/1200-0487$15.00/0 C 1998 Plenum Publishing Corporation
KEY WORDS: Spontaneous play; autism; symbolic play.
488 Libby, Powell, Messer, and Jordan
some researchers, including Jarrold et al, (1996), Le-
wis and Boucher (1988), Sigman and Ungerer (1984),
Stone, Lemanek, Fischel, Fernandez, and Altemeier
(1990), and Whyte and Owens (1989), have revealed
deficits in both functional and symbolic play. Other
studies have only found a deficiency in the ability to
produce symbolic play acts (e.g., Baron-Cohen, 1987;
Gould, 1986; Mundy, Sigman, Ungerer, & Sherman,
1986).
A number of theories have been put forward to
explain these difficulties in the production of pretend
play. The most influential has been the suggestion
that individuals with autism have a metarepresenta-
tional deficit. This account was originally proposed
by Leslie (1987). His theory suggested that to under-
stand reality and engage in functional play we require
primary representations of the world. However, in
symbolic play a child transgresses reality. To avoid
confusion about the properties of objects during such
symbolic play another level of representation is re-
quired. Leslie suggested that primary representations
are decoupled to create metarepresentations which
are separated from their true properties. Leslie pro-
posed that this same mechanism is employed with
prepositional attitudes which are believed to be in-
volved in the development of a theory of mind. Chil-
dren with autism have difficulties generating
symbolic play and developing theory of mind skills,
therefore a general deficit in the process of produc-
ing metarepresentations was proposed.
There are, however, a number of problems with
the metarepresentational account. Some individuals
with autism are capable of producing limited sym-
bolic play, especially those children with higher ver-
bal mental ages. Although these behaviors are often
repetitive and stereotyped they appear to require de-
coupling if one accepts Leslie's theoretical model.
Furthermore, there is increasing evidence that chil-
dren with autism can produce symbolic play when
they receive appropriate prompts (Gould, 1986; Le-
wis & Boucher, 1988; Whyte & Owens, 1989) and
can comprehend pretend play acts (Jarrold, Smith,
Boucher, & Harris, 1994; Kavanaugh and Harris,
1994). These findings cannot be reconciled with a
metarepresentational account. This approach also
fails to account for reports of a functional play defi-
cit.
Leslie's metarepresentational theory is further
confounded by conceptual issues (see Jarrold, Car-
ruthers, Smith, & Boucher, 1994c for a review). For
example, his theory fails to take account of the de-
velopmental sequence observed in the normal emer-
gence of symbolic play, assuming all three forms of
symbolic play emerge simultaneously. Researchers
have found that object substitutions emerge prior to
reference to absent objects and attribution of false
properties (Corrigan, 1987).
Other theories have suggested that children with
autism possess the cognitive capacity to perform pre-
tend play but have difficulties demonstrating this
ability. For example, executive dysfunction (Ozonoff,
Pennington, & Rogers, 1991) and generativity deficits
(Jarrold et al, 1993, 1996; Lewis & Boucher, 1995)
have been proposed as accounting for many aspects
of the behaviors demonstrated by individuals with
autism, including then- difficulties with pretend play.
These theories are capable of explaining many of the
fi ndi ngs t hat fail to be accounted for by the
metarepresentational account. However, like Leslie's
account these theories have failed to consider
whether or not individuals with autism have difficul-
ties with more basic exploratory and play behaviors.
Before the emergence of pretend play, infants
normally demonstrate a range of other play behav-
iors. Sensorimotor play emerges in the infants, first
year and can be defined as playing with an object
without accounting for its functional characteristics
(e.g., banging, oral exploration, spinning). These be-
haviors are often repetitive and the child seems to
derive low level stimulation from these acts. From 12
months, the child begins to combine objects in play
during relational play, for example, placing objects
inside each other or piling objects up (Fein & Apfel,
1979).
Children with autism have been found to persist
in their production of sensorimotor play (De Myer,
Mann, Tilton, & Loew, 1967; Tilton & Ottinger,
1964). However, many studies reporting this pre-
dominance are confounded by methodological prob-
lems. These include the use of inappropriate
diagnostic criteria for recognizing autism and a fail-
ure to use control groups matched on appropriate
measures of verbal functioning (Jarrold et al., 1993).
Many studies without such methodological flaws have
not closely examined sensorimotor or relational play
(Gould, 1986; Riguet, Taylor, Benaroya, & Klein,
1981; Whyte & Owens, 1989), whereas others have
failed to find evidence of a preponderance of sen-
sorimotor play in individuals with autism (Lewis &
Boucher, 1988; Stone et al, 1990).
It is not clear what relationship, if any, these
early emerging play skills have with the later capacity
Spontaneous Play in Children with Autism
489
to pretend. Nevertheless, some authors argue that
the first is antecedent to the second. Gorlitz (1987)
claimed that establishing familiarity with an object
through exploration is a precursor to the capacity to
generate new perspectives on an object or situation,
as is evidenced in symbolic play. He cited evidence
that levels of early exploratory behavior have been
found to correlate with the later emergence of pre-
tend play in some children. Roeyers and van
Berkelaer-Onnes (1994) have extended these views
to autism and suggested that the deficit in pretend
play is a product of children with autism lacking a
sense of curiosity and exploratory behavior. These
proposals are clearly in contrast to Leslie's view of
symbolic play as a qualitatively distinct behavior that
is not related to previously established abilities. Al-
though, some hypotheses have concentrated on the
relation between early emerging social skills (Hob-
son, 1993) or initial theory of mind abilities (Baron-
Cohen & Ring, 1994; Charman, 1997) and the later
emergence of pretense, they have overlooked the po-
tential role of early play and exploratory behavior.
The further examination of these early play skills is
necessary to enhance our understanding of pretence
in autism.
This study was conducted to clarify the problems
that individuals with autism have in the production
of spontaneous play. Attention is given not only to
pretend play behaviors but also to the production of
relational and sensorimotor play as well as explora-
tory behavior. The work reviewed above reveals that
careful examination of these early forms of play have
been neglected in many studies. All the children in
this study had relatively low verbal mental ages com-
pared to many previous studies (e.g., Gould, 1986;
Jarrold, Boucher, & Smith, 1994a, 1996; Lewis &
Boucher, 1988). This allowed the comparison of typi-
cally developing children who were just beginning to
engage in pretend play with children with autism and
children with Down syndrome of comparable mental
ages. The children engaged in play with a range of
conventional toys and junk objects. It was hoped that
this range of objects would stimulate different types
of play behavior, maximizing the opportunities for
both functional and symbolic play.
From previous work it was expected that the
children with autism would experience difficulties in
the production of symbolic play. It is less clear if the
children with autism would have specific difficulties
with the other types of play behavior.
METHOD
Subjects
Twenty-seven children participated in this study,
9 with autism, 9 with Down syndrome, and 9 with
typical development. The characteristics of the chil-
dren are displayed in Table I. It should be noted that
the groups of children were not matched for sex or
chronological age, only on language expression and
comprehension, as described later.
The children with autism displayed the triad of
impairments (Wing & Gould, 1979) that are a req-
uisite for a diagnosis of autism and attended schools
for children with autism. One of the children with
Down syndrome attended a school for children with
moderate learning difficulties (MLD), the others
were in preschool at the onset of this study but had
access to some nursery provision. Six of the children
with typical development attended private day nurs-
eries, the remainder were cared for at home by a par-
ent.
The children were matched on their language
production and comprehension using the Reynell
Developmental Language Scale (Reynell & Huntley,
1987) (see Table II). It was not possible to collect
data on the expressive language scores using the
Reynell for all the children. The MacArthur Com-
municative Inventory (Fenson et al., 1993) was also
given to a parent or teacher to be completed. For
the two children with Down syndrome who did not
have Reynell expressive language scores, their pro-
Table I. Sex and Chronological Age of the Children
Chronological age
Group
Autistic
Down syndrome
Typical development
No. of girls
1
5
2
No. of
boys
8
4
7
M (years;
months)
10;03
4;04
2;01
SD
(months)
44.03
13.59
2.08
Range (years;
months)
5;01-16;05
3;00-6;05
1;11-2;04
490
Libby, Powell, Messer, and Jordan
ductive vocabulary levels, as measured by the Mac
Arthur, were taken. The vocabulary scores obtained
for these two children fell at 22 months and 25
months on the 50th percentile.
Using a one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA)
there was no significant difference between the three
groups on the scores obtained on the Reynell meas-
ures of language comprehension, F(2, 26) = 0.56, p
= .58, or expression, F(2, 24) = 0.16, p = .85. If the
two MacArthur scores given above are used in the
analysis of expressive language there remains no sig-
nificant difference between the three groups, F(2, 26)
= 0.54, p = .59.
Materials
Three groups of ten objects were presented to
the children; these were (a) conventional toys, (b) a
mixture of conventional toys and junk objects, and
(c) an array of junk objects. These objects are de-
scribed in the Appendix.
Design and Procedure
During an initial visit to see the children the ex-
perimenter administered the Reynell and had an op-
portunity to become familiar to the children. The
testing took place in a quiet room at school, at the
nursery, or at the home of the child, depending on
what was most convenient or appropriate.
On the second visit the children were recorded
playing with the toys described in the Appendix.
There was an initial warm-up session where the chil-
dren were given a toy giraffe, a miniature plastic tree,
a toy racing car, a doll's bottle, and a foil pie dish
and encouraged to play with them. This allowed the
children to become familiar with the procedure be-
fore the experimental objects were presented. No
play behaviors were modeled by the experimenter.
The three object sets were given to the children for
5 minutes each, the order in which these objects were
presented was randomized, so any effects of order
were counterbalanced. The experimenter only gave
the children nondirective prompts (e.g., "Look at the
things on the table"). The prompts gave the children
no indication of what to do with the objects and only
acted as a means to redirect a child's attention to
the objects if it strayed. If any other adult was pre-
sent they were instructed to do the same.
The children were revisited at two further data
points, the second visit was 3 to 4 months after the
first assessment of spontaneous play and the third
was 3 to 4 months after data point two. This test-
retest design was chosen to explore the consistency
of the type of play produced by the groups of chil-
dren across time.
Scoring
The videos were analyzed for instances of sen-
sorimotor, relational, functional, and symbolic play,
as well as nonplay behaviors. The behavior categories
in the analysis, expanded on previous schemes de-
vised by Leslie (1987), Lewis, Boucher, and Astell
(1992), and Ungerer and Sigman (1981), are summa-
rised in Table III. A time-interval analysis was con-
ducted, so at every 15 seconds the play in behavior
that the child was currently engaged in was coded.
This gave a total of 20 coded acts for each of the
object sets, 60 acts in all for each child at each data
point. The objects that the children acted upon and
any language produced were also noted. The videos
were examined again using event sampling coding so
that all symbolic play acts produced could be ana-
lysed.
Interrater agreement was calculated for the play
behaviors of three children at each data point, one
in each of the groups. Cohen's kappa's of .84 for
categorizing behavior, .92 for noting the objects used,
and .90 for event sampling the symbolic play acts
were achieved (Cohen, 1960).
Table II. Language Abilites of the Children at Data Point One
Reynell Score
Comprehension
(months)
Expression
(months)
Autistic
M
29
27
SD
4.80
3.52
n
9
9
Down syndrome
M
27
26
SD
3.43
1.95
n
9
7
Typically developing
M
29
26
SD
4.82
2.29
n
9
9
ANOVA
F
0.56
0.16
P
.58
.85
Spontaneous Play in Children with Autism
491
RESULTS
Any change found across time is described first,
followed by a consideration of the occurrence of play
and nonplay behaviors, and the total number of sym-
bolic play acts produced. Correlations were con-
ducted to examine any possible relations between the
different types of behavior. As the three groups of
children differed on their chronological age the as-
sociation between age and the production of differ-
ent play behaviors was also assessed.
Change Across Time
A Wilcoxon matched-pairs signed-rank test re-
vealed no consistent significant changes across all
three data points in the type of play displayed by any
of the three groups of children. Over the 6 months
the children with typical development and the chil-
dren with Down syndrome showed few changes in
the types of play they were demonstrating. The only
significant change for the children with Down syn-
drome was from data point one to data point three
where sensorimotor play was significantly reduced (t
= -2.24, p = .03). The children with typical devel-
opment showed a reduction in sensorimotor play (t
= -2.07, p = .04) and functional play (t = -2.19, p
= .03) between data points two and three. There
were no changes in the play behaviors produced by
the children with autism although exploratory behav-
ior increased significantly between data points one
and two (t = -2.67, p = .01) but fell again at data
point three. These data suggest that the type of play
Table III. Description of the Coding Scheme
Code
1A
IB
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9A
9B
10A
10B
10C
Behavior
Not attending
Attending to objects not acting
Unrelated behavior
Labeling
Giving/showing
Attempt to terminate session
Exploration
Sensorimotor play
Relational play
Functional play (conventional objects)
Functional play (junk objects)
Symbolic play (object substitution)
Symbolic play (attribution of false
properties)
Symbolic play (reference to an absent
object)
Description and examples
Looking elsewhere.
Looking at objects without acting on them.
Self-stimulation that does not involve objects, asking irrelevant
questions, talking to self.
Labeling or telling the adult about the objects.
Giving or showing the objects to the adult without commenting
on them, e.g., trying to initiate a game with the adult.
E.g., Throwing the objects off the table or saying 'put away' or
'finish.'
E.g., Transferring an object from one place to another or
turning object over in hands.
Objects are acted on without the child taking account of the
functional features of the object. This is often repetitive. E.g.,
oral exploration, banging, spinning
Relating two or more objects in a way that does not indicate
functional or symbolic play, e.g., piling objects up, putting
objects in a box, put car on top of carwash.
Using a toy as its function denotes, e.g., brush doll's hair, push
car through carwash.
Using a junk object as its function denotes, e.g., wiping face
with cotton wool, placing straw in bottle and putting in mouth.
Using an object as if it was something else, e.g., using brick as
a car, plug as a baby's dummy.
Attributing properties to an objects as if they were present,
e.g., claiming the toy stove is 'hot,' cleaning the doll's face
saying 'dirty.'
Making reference to something that is absent as if it is present,
e.g., driving the truck over an imaginary bridge, eating
imaginary food.
492 Libby, Powell, Messer, and Jordan
produced by the children, especially those with
autism, was generally consistent across time. In the
rest of this paper data from all three data points are
averaged to provide a mean score.
Occurrence of Play and Nonplay behaviors
This analysis explores the number of play and
nonplay behaviors produced by the three groups. The
percentage of each behavior was calculated by divid-
ing the frequency by 60 (the total number of acts that
were observed). Table IV provides details of these
data and the results of statistical analyses using a
Kruskal-Wallis one-way ANOVA.
There were no significant differences in the
amount of nonplay behavior that the three groups
produced. Although, the children with Down syn-
drome produced more behavior that could be classi-
fied as nonplay than the other two groups. The
proportion of time that the children spent engaged
in exploratory behavior was not significantly different
across the three groups. This category was used to
describe much of the observed activities of all three
groups, each group spent more than 29% of their
time in exploratory behavior.
The children with autism produced significantly
more sensorimotor play when compared to the other
two groups (H = 10.77, df = 2, p < .01). A Mann-
Whitney U test on these data revealed that the chil-
dren with autism produced significantly more
sensorimotor play than children with Down syn-
drome (U = 8, p < .01) and children with typical
development (U = 11, p < .01). There was no sig-
nificant difference in the production of relational
play by the groups. However, the children with
autism produced less of this behavior than the chil-
dren with Down syndrome and typical development.
There was no significant difference in the pro-
portion of functional play using conventional objects
produced by the three groups of children. Although,
the children with typical development produced
more functional play than the other two groups.
The children with Down syndrome and typical
development produced significantly more symbolic
play acts than the children with autism (H = 8.21,
df = 2, p = .02). This is confirmed by a Mann-Whit-
ney U test conducted on these data, children with
autism produced significantly less symbolic play than
the children with Down syndrome (U = 12.5, p =
.01) and the children with typical development (U =
13.5, p = .02).
Analysis of All Symbolic Play Acts
Due to the low level of symbolic play production
observed using the time-interval analysis the videos
of the children were reexamined to record every in-
cidence of symbolic play. These data and analyses are
displayed in Table V
There was no significant difference in the total
number of symbolic play acts, which were classified
as object substitution, across the three groups of chil-
dren. However, the children with autism produced no
symbolic play acts involving a reference to an absent
object (H = 10.28, df=2,p = .01). This was signifi-
cantly less than the children with Down syndrome (U
= 9, p < .01) and the children with typical develop-
ment (U = 18, p = 0.01). The children with autism
also produced significantly fewer acts that involved at-
tributions of false properties (H = 12.04, df = 2, p
< .01). This was significantly fewer than the children
with Down syndrome (U = 4, p < .01) and the chil-
dren with typical development (U = 12, p = .01). Five
children with autism produced some symbolic play
Table IV. Average Percentage of Each Play Behavior Produced by the Children in Each Group
0
Type of play
Nonplay
Exploratory
Sensorimotor
Relational
Functional
Symbolic
Autistic
M
21.49
38.85
17.29
11.94
9.37
0.70
SD
7.56
11.21
7.43
5.24
6.91
1.10
Down syndrome
M
30.79
29.58
7.80
15.97
8.14
5.05
SD
13.54
5.16
5.35
7.57
5.08
4.90
Typically developing
M
21.24
33.63
10.67
15.61
13.33
3.75
SD
8.71
7.68
3.69
5.23
5.66
3.49
Kruskal-Wallis
H
2.28
3.62
10.77
3.28
4.65
8.21
(df = 2)
P
.32
.16
<.01
.19
.12
.02
a
n was 9 for each type of play except for symbolic play, n for symbolic play was 5 for the children with autism, 8 for the
children with Down syndrome, and 8 for the children with typical development.
Spontaneous Play in Children with Autism
493
acts, compared to all 9 children with Down syndrome
and 8 of the children with typical development.
Correlations Between Play behaviors
To begin to understand if any specific relation-
ships hold between different types of play behavior
a Pearson's r was produced for all the pairs of play
behaviors using data from all three groups. A num-
ber of negative correlations were significant. Sen-
sorimotor play was negatively correlated with
symbolic play (r = -.53, p < .01) and relational
play (r = -.45, p = .05). Nonplay behaviors were
negatively correlated to functional play (r = -.43,
p .05) and exploration (r = -.66, p < .01).
Whether or not the chronological age (CA) of
a child mediates the type of play behaviors produced
was also of interest. CA was not correlated to any
play behaviors in the group of children with autism.
However, for the children with Down syndrome the
production of functional play was correlated to CA
(r = .69, p = .04). The children with typical devel-
opment demonstrated a correlation between CA and
the production of relational play (r = .79, p = .01).
DISCUSSION
Symbolic Play
The children with autism had difficulties in the
production of symbolic play compared to the other
two groups of children, this is especially evident when
examining the total number of symbolic play acts
produced. However, symbolic play was demonstrated
by five of the children with autism during at least
one of the data points. This finding supports the ar-
gument that children with autism do not have a
metarepresentational deficit in Leslie's terms. As,
even in this group of children with relatively low ver-
bal mental ages there is some evidence of a capacity
to engage in symbolic play. Interestingly, all but two
of the symbolic play acts that were produced by the
children with autism were object substitutions.
Other investigators who have detailed the type
of symbolic play acts produced by children with
autism have predominantly described object substi-
tutions (Baron-Cohen, 1987; Boucher & Lewis,
1990). For example, Boucher and Lewis (1990) pre-
sented data giving examples of creative symbolic play
generated by children with autism in their study of
elicited pretence. The majority of the acts they de-
scribe are object substitions, for example, a subject
holds a straw upright on the floor, pushes the car
past, and says "lamp-post." However, this tendency
to produce object substitutions rather than other
forms of symbolic play has not been addressed in the
literature. This finding clearly conflicts with Leslie's
view that the three forms of symbolic play emerge
as a package.
This preserved capacity to produce object sub-
stitutions could be explained in a number of ways. It
may indicate that the production of object substitu-
tions is dependent on a different cognitive mecha-
nism than other forms of symbolic play. Currie
Table V. Total Number of Symbolic Play Acts Observed Across All Three Data Points
Symbolic play type
Object substitution
M
n
Attribution of false property
M
n
Reference to absent object
M
n
Total
M
n
Group
Autistic
24
4
2
1
0
0
26
5
D/S
29
6
65
9
87
7
181
9
T/D
34
7
45
7
59
5
138
8
Kruskal-Wallis
(df = 2)
3.01, p = .22
12.04, p < .01
10.28, p = .01
9.63, p = .01
Mann-Whitney U
Autistic vs. D/S
30, p = .33
4, p < .01
9, p < .01
8, p < .01
Autistic vs. T/D
21.5, p = .08
12, p = .01
18, p = .01
13, p = .01
494
Libby, Powell, Messer, and Jordan
(1996) has argued that a process like metarepresen-
tation may not be required for object substitutions,
"I do not, in particular, believe that the use of an
object for the purposes of pretence requires the
agent to see the object as a symbol for something
else" (p. 252). Consequentially, it is possible that ob-
ject substitutions can be generated purely through
the understanding of correspondence or simulation
which do not involve a symbolic process (Harris,
1994; Perner, Baker, & Mutton, 1994; Lillard, 1993).
An alternative view is that object substitutions
are easier to produce because of the visual similari-
ties between the object used and what is being sym-
bolized. This could be explained by the generativity
hypothesis. Jarrold et al. (1996) and Lewis and
Boucher (1988) have demonstrated that individuals
with autism produce more symbolic play when the
environment is structured. The predominance of ob-
ject substitutions in the autistic population could be
a result of greater contextual support for these sym-
bolic acts. Other forms of symbolic play may be more
dependent on the child generating ideas for pretense
which are independent of the current context.
A related view would be to suggest that the pre-
tend play difficulties experienced by those with
autism were a product of general developmental de-
lay. Object substitutions are the first forms of sym-
bolic play to emerge in typical development
(Corrigan, 1987), so it may be that the play of chil-
dren with autism is no different, only delayed in its
maturation. However, a delay hypothesis fails to ac-
count for other aberrations in the pretend play pro-
duced by this population. For example, children with
autism tend to produce isolated or perseverative sym-
bolic play (Atlas, 1990; Wulff, 1985). An example
from the children observed in this study is a boy with
autism who perseverated in labeling a piece of string
as a "worm" without animating it. Although such
narrow behavior was not completely absent in the
nonautistic groups, the other children tended to show
more flexible and elaborate symbolic play.
Currently, there is little to choose between the
different explanations about the capacity of children
with autism to produce object substitutions. Further
analysis of the type of symbolic play behaviors in in-
dividuals with autism who have a higher mental age
may help to distinguish between these various hy-
potheses and influence the type of theories which can
explain this condition. Another issue which needs to
be addressed in future work concerns the finding that
suggests children with autism have some limited ca-
pacity to produce symbolic play but have problems
exercising this in a flexible manner.
Functional Play
The children with autism did not demonstrate
significantly less functional play than the other two
groups of children. Furthermore, functional play was
produced by all the children with autism. Superfi-
cially these findings indicate that there is not a func-
tional play deficit in this group. However, it appears
that both the children with autism and Down syn-
drome produce less functional play than the children
with typical development. For the children with
Down syndrome this limited amount of functional
play is apparent alongside a normal capacity to pro-
duce symbolic play, but for the children with autism
this accompanies their difficulties in the production
of symbolic play.
A possible reason for the production of less
functional play by children with autism and children
with Down syndrome is that both groups have diffi-
culties in the development of conceptual and cate-
gorical knowledge that may be required in the
production of functional play (Klinger & Dawson,
1995). However, further work is required to deter-
mine if these conceptual difficulties relate to prob-
lems with functional play. In addition subtyping of
functional play may be necessary to identify differ-
ences between children with autism and other chil-
dren.
Other Play behaviors
Relational play did not appear to vary signifi-
cantly between the three groups of children. How-
ever, in this study the different types of relational
play were grouped together. Fein and Apfel (1979)
described how children first relate two objects to-
gether before engaging in more complex combina-
tions and relating objects in a socially appropriate
manner. There was a trend for the children with
autism to produce less relational play than the other
groups of children and it is possible that if their be-
haviors were observed in more detail, significant dif-
ferences in the play behavior of children with autism
might be identified.
The children with autism produced significantly
more sensorimotor activities supporting the view that
this behavior may dominate play in this group. A
Spontaneous Play in Children with Autism
495
dominance of sensorimotor play could prevent an in-
dividual with autism from displaying their capacity
for symbolic play. This study provides some support
for this suggestion as the production of sensorimotor
play was negatively correlated with the production of
symbolic play. When a child with autism is con-
fronted with a set of objects the salience of the sen-
sorimotor features of the objects may overpower
their functional and symbolic potentials. In struc-
tured situations such difficulties are less apparent as
the functional and symbolic aspects of an object are
made more accessible to the child by controlling their
prepotent sensorimotor response. This is compatible
with reports of increased symbolic play abilities in
structured settings (Gould, 1986; Lewis & Boucher,
1988; Whyte & Owens, 1989).
Alternatively, Roeyers and van Berkelaer-Onnes
(1994) have suggested that because of the dominance
of stereotyped, persistent, and self-stimulatory behav-
ior in this population, curiosity is not awakened, and
the development of symbolic play muted. They argue
that the dominance of sensorimotor play could re-
strict children with autism's experience of objects.
This in turn would limit their perceived control and
capacity to explore the objects and delay the devel-
opment of stable functional concepts about those ob-
jects. This could culminate in difficulties generating
symbolic play.
Another argument should also be considered. It
is possible that because of the problems developing
symbolic play sensorimotor behavior proliferates.
Longitudinal studies following the development of
children with autism over time are clearly required
to understand how a tendency to produce sensori-
motor behavior may influence the development of
pretend play.
There was no difference in the amount of ex-
ploratory behavior between the three groups of chil-
dren. However, the time-interval analysis may not
have been sensitive enough to pick up any subtle dif-
ferences in exploratory behavior between the three
groups. By assessing the specific nature of explora-
tory behavior produced, a more accurate assessment
of exploration may be obtained. For example,
whether a child visually scans the objects when acting
on them may be of particular interest as this is one
of the defining feature of exploration in typical de-
velopment (Ruff & Salterelli, 1993).
Methodological Considerations
The extent that the behavior recorded here was
spontaneous should be considered. Although the
prompts that were given were nondirective and
would not affect the type of behavior that the chil-
dren produced on the objects if these cues were not
present, it is possible that the children with autism
may have spent even less time interacting with the
objects. The children with autism spent more time
looking elsewhere at all three data points and may
have remained distracted in this behavior if attention
was not drawn to the objects. Skelly, Lewis, and Col-
lis (1993) also found that children with autism spent
significantly more time "looking away" than the con-
trol groups, supporting these findings.
One possible criticism of the current study is
that although the children in the different groups
were matched on verbal mental age, the children
with autism were substantially older than the other
two groups of children. Therefore, the IQ of the chil-
dren with autism was likely to be lower than the chil-
dren in the other groups. Measures of verbal mental
age are imperative when studying pretend play as in
typical development the production of pretend play
is believed to be related to language level (Ungerer
& Sigman, 1981). Although CA was related to the
production of certain play skills in the other two
groups, CA did not mediate the type of play which
was produced by the children with autism. The chil-
dren with autism had also been exposed to more
years of schooling than the other two groups of chil-
dren. This may have influenced the type of behaviors
the children with autism demonstrated. Future stud-
ies should consider the effects of IQ and CA as well
as verbal mental age on the play behaviors produced
by the autistic population.
CONCLUSION
This study focused on the type of early sponta-
neous play children with autism produce as well as
functional and symbolic play behaviors. By observing
many aspects of play behavior a dominance of sen-
sorimotor play was identified. Some tentative sugges-
tions were made regarding how this predominance
of sensorimotor behavior could have a bearing on the
production of symbolic play and it is hoped that fu-
ture research will explore the relationship between
496
Libby, Powell, Messer, and Jordan
these play behaviors in both typical and atypical de-
velopment.
As some symbolic play was observed in the chil-
dren with autism, Leslie's claim that this group has
a metarepresentational deficit appears simplistic. Of
particular interest is the dominance of object substi-
tutions over other types of symbolic play produced
by children with autism. What the presence of these
symbolic play behaviors mean for the underlying cog-
nitive capacities of individuals with autism and how
this is linked to other difficulties experienced by this
group remains to be established. There was also evi-
dence of some difficulties in functional play although
the amount of functional play produced by the chil-
dren with autism did not differ significantly from the
control groups. Clearly, the qualitative dimensions of
functional play should be examined in future studies.
To conclude, this study provides some new findings
regarding both the pretend play and early play be-
haviors produced by children with autism. It is hoped
that future studies will build on the observations
made here to further reappraise our understanding
of play in the autistic population.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This research would not have been possible
without the help of the parents and children who
took part, to whom we are indebted. We are also
grateful to the staff at Radlett Lodge School, Hert-
fordshire; Heathermount School, Berkshire; and
Copperbeech Nurseries, Hertfordshire for participat-
ing. This work was first presented at the British Psy-
chological Society Developmental Conference,
Glasgow, September 1995.
APPENDIX
Objects Used in the Study
(a) Conventional toys and accessories:
Car
Doll
Carwash
Traffic lights
Petrol pump
Hairbrush
Spoon
Bowl
Toy stove
Pan
(b) Conventional toys and junk objects:
Teddy bear
Truck
Cotton wool
Cardboard box
Piece of material
Plug
Ruler
Toilet roll
Flower pot
Wooden brick
(c) An array of junk objects:
Washing-up liquid bottle
Margarine tub
String
Piece of tin foil
Matchbox
Straw
Cottonreel
Lollipop stick
Clothes peg
Piece of cardboard
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