How to Play
Play is a concept that seems simple enough, so why do many clinicians and parents feel stumped when they’re faced with the task of playing with a child? We all played as children, it must be easy! We aren’t given a handbook on how to play, and as adults and professionals we often feel a pressure to be providing ‘therapeutic play’. This might look like trying to teach words, asking the child to copy us, and perhaps even frustration when our child just won’t play with a toy how you’re ‘supposed to’.
The result? Unhappy children and exhausted adults. Let’s dive into the research on what we know about play (including Autistic play) and some strategies to consider to make those interactions fun rather than a chore.
What is play
O’Keeffe & McNally (2025) spoke to Autistic children aged 5 to 13 to find out what play meant to them. They took away four key themes:
1) Play must be fun.
2) Play involves connection.
3) Play should include items that are meaningful.
4) Choice through autonomy and agency was required across all three prior themes.
These key ingredients affirm a child’s choice in the play and highlight the importance of engaging play that is meaningful to them (this might not be what’s meaningful to us!). Drill practice of words your child isn’t interested in and didn’t initiate themselves? Not fun, and not play.
From this definition, play is very broad and unique to each person. Many of our current methods of assessing play development are based on neurotypical norms. This inherently diminishes Autistic children’s experiences of the world and their joy in play. At worst, we risk teaching our Autistic children masking behaviours to appear more like their neurotypical peers, thereby removing their autonomy and diminishing their self worth.
We may not think stacking items up and down, lining up toys, or playing with shoes is fun. But our child might, and if they do, it’s our job to join in rather than direct them away from that play. My rule of thumb? If no one and nothing is getting hurt, it’s ok to play!
Why play?
My prior post on DIR FloorTime and the science behind the play gives an overview, but let’s dive deeper into the positive outcomes of engaging in play.
Chang, Shire, Shih & Kasari (2023) found that 109 preschoolers provided with JASPER intervention (Joint Attention, Symbolic Play, Engagement, and Regulation) improved not only their cognition, but also their expressive communication. This approach attempts to follow the tenant shared by DIR FloorTime of following the child’s lead and supporting their regulation and engagement. Additional studies support this connection, noting improved gesture, expression and shared meaning particularly when symbolic play was present (Hendrickson, DeVeney & Kelly-Vance 2019; Quinn & Kidd, 2018; Chang, Shih, Landa, Kaiser, and Kasari 2017).
We need to note however, pushing a child into symbolic play when they are finding joy in functional play misses our key tenants of play above. Remember, all play is ok and meet the child where they’re at. If it’s not fun, it’s not play.
How to play
Let’s round it off with some simple tips to get real play and engagement in any environment:
Follow the child’s lead. Copy them, watch them, join them. Talk about what they’re doing, not what you want them to do.
Let them lead. Park your expectations and ideas at the door. Let your child lead the interaction and focus on supporting it and modelling language rather than redirecting to what they ‘should’ be doing with a toy.
Keep it simple. Many times, parents ask me what toys they should buy to support their child’s language development. Some parents have even purchased every toy I’ve used in sessions because they think those items are particularly good language supports. The secret is, you can play with anything, anywhere. In fact, O’Neill et al., (2019) found that parents did a much better job of modelling language when toys were very simple than when they had more parts.
Remember to move. Movement is incredibly important in supporting regulation and engagement, particularly in our Autistic kids. Stiller & Stiller (2022) found that parents reported their Autistic children experienced higher quality of life when they regularly engaged in active leisure time (amongst other factors). Binns et al., (2022) also found that Autistic children’s engagement with caregivers was higher when engaging in gross motor play when compared to symbolic object play. This doesn’t mean gross motor play is better, it just means that the younger Autistic children sampled appeared to engage more with others whilst participating in this form of play.
Be present. Put away the teaching hat and truly focus on sharing your child’s joy. Play is fun. Even if your idea of fun isn’t quite the same, I promise that watching your child’s joy when you play like they play is well worth it.
If you’re going to model another way to play, honour your child’s choices. Perhaps they want to see what else you can do with a car one day, but the next they’d prefer to line them up. That’s ok! Meet them where they are today, gently stretch, and respect that sometimes they’d like to do something else.
Keep it fun, keep it going, and play on!
References
Binns, A.V. et al. (2022) ‘Autistic preschoolers’ engagement and language use in gross motor versus symbolic play settings’, Autism & Developmental Language Impairments, 7. doi:10.1177/23969415221115045.
Chang, Y.-C. et al. (2017) ‘Symbolic play in school-aged minimally verbal children with autism spectrum disorder’, Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 48(5), pp. 1436–1445. doi:10.1007/s10803-017-3388-6.
Chang, Y.-C. et al. (2023) ‘Developmental play skills as outcomes of early intervention’, Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 54(12), pp. 4369–4375. doi:10.1007/s10803-023-06147-8.
Hendrickson, B., DeVeney, S.L. and Kelly-Vance, L. (2019) ‘Play behaviors of young children with and without expressive language delay: An exploratory study’, Journal of Curriculum, Teaching, Learning an Leadership in Education, 4(1). doi:10.32873/uno.dc.ctlle.04.01.1065.
O’Keeffe, C. and McNally, S. (2025) ‘“Like it’s making my heart run”: A strengths-based understanding of the play of autistic children’, Autism, 29(6), pp. 1469–1482. doi:10.1177/13623613251315985.
O'Neill, D. K., Deglint, T. J., McKinnon, A. M., Nyhout, A., & Scott, J. (2019). Busy toy designs reduce the specificity of mothers’ references to toy parts during toy play with their toddlers. Canadian Journal of Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology, 43(1), 35–47.
Quinn, S. and Kidd, E. (2018) ‘Symbolic play promotes non‐verbal communicative exchange in infant–caregiver Dyads’, British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 37(1), pp. 33–50. doi:10.1111/bjdp.12251.
Stiller, A. and Stiller, C. (2022) ‘Parental report of quality of life in autistic children and youths: The role of parents’ (informal) social support, and children’s active leisure time’, International Journal of Developmental Disabilities, 70(3), pp. 354–364. doi:10.1080/20473869.2022.2092935.
