autism and play

When a child does not use toys in the expected way, adults may assume the play is incorrect, limited, or meaningless. But autistic play is not a failed version of typical play.

It reflects real differences in attention, sensory processing, interest, and how a child engages with the world. What looks unusual from the outside is often doing something for the child on the inside.

Many children use toys in socially familiar ways, pretending to feed a doll or pushing a car across the floor. Some autistic children engage with toys differently, focusing on movement, texture, pattern, or a specific feature rather than the toy's intended pretend use.

Research bears this out. Reviews of pretend play in autism find that spontaneous pretend tends to develop differently, while the underlying capacity is often present and shows up more readily when play is given structure or support (Jarrold, 2003). The difference is in how pretend is expressed, not whether a child can engage at all.

Part of the difference is simply where attention lands. Some autistic children are drawn to parts of objects rather than the whole: wheels spinning, doors opening and closing, hinges moving, buttons clicking, the texture or shape of a thing. These features can be more predictable, more sensory-rich, or more interesting than a broad pretend theme.

Repetitive play gets read as purposeless too, but repetition can do real work:

When autistic adults describe repetitive movement in their own words, they consistently frame it as a way to self-regulate, to soothe or manage intense feelings, rather than as something empty (Kapp et al., 2019). Repetition is not always a sign of limitation. It can be a different way of learning and engaging.

Lining up toys receives the same deficit-based treatment, when for some children it reflects an interest in order, pattern, symmetry, and visual organisation, and it can feel calming and predictable.

Some children are more object-focused than socially focused, and it is easy to read that as a lack of interest in connection. It usually is not. Social play is more complex, less predictable, and harder to process. Objects can be a more manageable starting point, a way in rather than a wall.

And play matters for communication. It is through play that children learn to share attention, anticipate actions, take turns, imitate, and engage with others. In autistic children specifically, early toy play has been shown to predict the rate at which communication skills develop over the following years (Toth et al., 2006).

This is why following a child's interests works. When adults join the play a child is already drawn to, rather than redirecting it, play becomes easier and more meaningful, and simple back-and-forth interactions have room to grow.