Teaching Pretend Play to Children With Disabilities

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to analyze literature regarding interventions for promoting pretend play in children with disabilities. Sixteen studies were found using experimental designs to evaluate pretend play interventions with children with disabilities. The results were analyzed across the targeted pretense behaviors, participants, materials, settings, interventions, levels of prompting, and rigor of the studies. Interventions were moderately effective, although methodological limitations affected experimental rigor, the types of conclusions that could be drawn, and evidence for practice. Implications for future research emerged and are described.

A Comparison of Least-to-Most Prompting and Video Modeling for Teaching Pretend Play Skills to Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

“…It is also an effective educational process supporting the development of a child's cognitive, lingual, social-emotional, and physical aspects (Lifter, Foster-Sanda, Arzamarski, Briesch, & McClure, 2011;Phillips & Beavan, 2012). Pretend play has an important role among early childhood play because it is emphasized in literature that pretend play in particular among the types of play is an early indicator of cognitive, social, and language skills (Barton & Pavilanis, 2012;Barton & Wolery, 2008;Lam & Yeung, 2012). Barton and Wolery (2008) stated that performing a series of interrelated realistic activities in pretend play can provide a basis for higher levels of thinking and reasoning.…”

“…Pretend play has an important role among early childhood play because it is emphasized in literature that pretend play in particular among the types of play is an early indicator of cognitive, social, and language skills (Barton & Pavilanis, 2012;Barton & Wolery, 2008;Lam & Yeung, 2012). Barton and Wolery (2008) stated that performing a series of interrelated realistic activities in pretend play can provide a basis for higher levels of thinking and reasoning. While pretend play is experienced at a basic level in early periods, it can turn into more complicated play to which symbolic components are added in parallel with development.…”

“…Children with ASD show a lower variety of pretend play skills at a basic level with lower frequency, compared to their peers who show typical development or other developmental disabilities (Barton & Wolery, 2008;Rutherford, Young, Hepburn, & Rogers, 2007). Failures of children with ASD in social interaction and communication skills limit their pretend play skills and form a basis for these pretend plays to show themselves as self-stimulatory behaviors (Barton & Pavilanis, 2012;Hobson, Hobson, Malik, Bargiota, & Calo, 2013;Lovaas, 2003).…”

Effectiveness of Instruction Performed through ComputerAssisted Activity Schedules on On-Schedule and Role-Play Skills of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

“…Play is a means that ensures that children interact and obtain new information on their environment by using various facets of their present accumulation of knowledge, gaining experience and supporting their identity development, cooperation skills, and creativity (Barton & Wolery, 2008;Lifter, FosterSanda, Arzamarski, Briesch, & McClure, 2011;Morrison, Sainato, Benchaan, & Endo, 2002;Naber et al, 2008). Play contributes significantly to the cognitive, social, emotional, linguistic, and physical development of children (Lifter et al, 2011;Phillips & Beavan, 2012).…”

“…This type of play emerges at approximately 18 months and becomes more complex as different fields of development, such as cognitive, social, and linguistic development, are strengthened (Barton & Wolery, 2008). Children showing typical development initially play simple games such as feeding the baby and parking the car in the garage, but later, they play more complex forms of these games by adding symbolic elements.…”