Supporting Autistic Play Development

Something about the phrase “functional play” really gets to me. 

What is the function of play?? 

Play = what is fun for the child! 

So why do we get to decide what’s fun for a child?

I know a lot of times we think we are helping them to be more flexible and develop their “functional play”. 

But in reality when we disrupt their play, we are dysregulating them. 

So what should we do??

First of all, we need to ask ourselves “why is the child playing with this toy in this specific way?”

There are usually several reasons behind the “function” of their play. One of which being that creating patterns is very calming for them and they enjoy the visual stimulation of setting up their toys a certain way. 

For some kids, they may be lining up their toys because they are dysregulated and they’re doing it to help themselves cope and get through that and get back on track. 

So when we come in and start changing everything they are doing, that is only going to dysregulate them even further. 

Another reason an autistic child may be playing with a toy in a specific way is because they played with that toy that way before and they now have this memory of how the toy should be played with. 

This is very common in our gestalt language processors where the toy represents a whole play scheme and they need to complete the scheme in the same way from beginning to end each time.

And let me say, on some level I think we know that we should be allowing them to play the way they want to play and honoring what is fun for them.

But then we start to feel this pressure like we need to be working on their communication goals and if the child is only going to play with the toy the same way over and over again, we’re not doing our job. And we feel like we cannot do both at the same time. 

But you absolutely can.

So here are my top tips on supporting Autistic play development:

Change your mindset on play and how you want the child to play. There are lots of different types of play and while we may want our kids to play collaboratively with us, there is absolutely nothing wrong with us engaging in parallel play next to them and we can be commenting on what they are doing and validating how they are feeling without trying to force them to play any differently. 

Make yourself the most fun thing in the room. Chances are when you are having a good time, your client is too.

Bring in new toys that can inspire new opportunities to play in different ways. If a child likes to play with one toy a certain way, you can try and engage them in a new toy and play collaboratively with it instead of trying to keep them from acting out a play scheme they have  previously learned. 

Create opportunities for problem solving. When we get down to the root of why we are wanting to change a child’s play, it’s usually because we want to help them be more flexible. So instead of trying to change their play, we can focus on problem solving during play. I have an entire training on problem solving that is coming soon to our NeuroAffirm Academy Members! 

Finally, the most important thing to remember when supporting Autistic kids is that we need to keep regulation at the forefront of our interactions. If a child is dysregulated, our goal should be to get them back to their regulated state. 

If you are an SLP and you’re ready to learn more about the neuroaffirming ways to support your autistic kids, then make sure you check out the NeuroAffirm Therapy Academy. 

When you join the Academy you will get a library full of resources, live calls with our Autistic mentor, and all the CEUs you need for a year, in everything ND affirming! 

>> Click here to learn more about becoming a member of the Academy

And if you want to hear more about my thoughts on supporting Autistic play development, check out this episode of my live show: Supporting Autistic Play Development