{"id":1275,"date":"2019-07-30T05:49:48","date_gmt":"2019-07-30T05:49:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.autismconnect.com\/blogs\/?p=1275"},"modified":"2025-08-05T11:37:02","modified_gmt":"2025-08-05T11:37:02","slug":"lets-play","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.autismconnect.com\/blogs\/lets-play\/","title":{"rendered":"Let\u2019s Play!!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cWhen we make Play the foundation of learning, we teach the Whole child\u201d- Vince
\nGowmon.<\/h4>\n

What is Play?<\/h4>\n

Many activities that children engage in have a goal or purpose. Examples of it include eating,
\ncleaning, coloring a picture and other routine activities or \u2018work.\u2019 Outside of these activities,
\nchildren engage in tasks that have no goals per se and are done for their own sake rather than
\ntheir outcome. This is what is called Play. Play is not merely a means for filling up free time.
\nPlay plays a very important role in a child\u2019s emotional, physical, social and cognitive
\ndevelopment. Children use their senses (sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch) to interact
\nwith their environment and that helps them explore and learn how the world around them
\nfunctions.<\/p>\n

Functional Play<\/h4>\n

The basic form of play in which infants engage is called functional play. It involves repetitive
\nacts of throwing, tapping or stacking. As per developmental psychologist Jean Piaget, these
\nbehaviors can be understood as experiments done by scientists. Throwing objects and
\nobserving it fall helps a child learn that unsupported objects hit the ground, always (or
\nNewton’s laws of universal gravitation, if you will). As this form of play extensively involves
\nthe sensory system, Jean Piaget classifies it as Sensorimotor play.<\/p>\n

Pretend Play<\/h4>\n

The next stage of play involves the use of objects as symbols. It is called symbolic or pretend
\nplay. For instance, a child would pick up a TV remote, place it on his ears and say \u2018hello\u2019,
\npretending to use it as a mobile phone. This kind of play helps a child to achieve the ability to
\nimagine, remember, understand and then replicate objects that are in their mind using
\nalternate objects that may be available to them at the moment. Eventually, play activities
\nbecome more sophisticated to involve complex situations and roles; an example could be
\nsetting up an elaborate classroom and becoming a teacher. This form of play helps the child
\nto create mental images of different scenarios for future use.<\/p>\n

Playing by the Rules<\/h4>\n

The third stage of play is rule-based play. Children engaging in this kind of play are required
\nto follow predetermined rules. This type of play involves competition, turn-taking, gauging
\nother person&#39;s mental states to reach the desired outcome i.e. to win the game. Examples of
\nthis include chess, snake, and ladders, and hide and seek. This play gives an opportunity for the
\nchild to form and test assumptions in a concrete, logical way.<\/p>\n

Play in Neurotypicals v\/s Play in ASD<\/h4>\n

The development of play in children with Autism Spectrum Disorder differs greatly from the
\nplay a typical child engages in. Most children on the spectrum engage in functional play only.
\nDue to difficulties in attention span, perspective-taking and understanding rules, children on
\nthe spectrum show difficulties in engaging in symbolic and rule-based play. As these play
\nactivities help in cognitive and social development, children on the spectrum need some
\nexposure to these play activities.<\/p>\n

\"Image
The theory of mind<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Theory of Mind<\/h4>\n

Theory of mind is an important cognitive process that distinguishes the ability of a child to
\nengage in social and rule-based play. Theory of mind is the ability to understand that people
\nhave thoughts and feelings different from you. It also involves attributing different
\nmental states to people based on the information gathered through multiple cues including
\nnonverbal cues and paralanguage. While engaging in play activities, understanding abstract
\nconcepts, planning and taking other person’s perspective into consideration are important.
\nConversely, engaging in play also helps in the development of these cognitive processes, leading
\nto development of the theory of mind.<\/p>\n

Children on the spectrum have deficits in theory of mind. This, in turn, can explain the
\ndifficulties they face in understanding social situations. However, interventions in the form of
\nplay activities exist to help a child develop a theory of mind. In our next article, we will discuss
\nthe concept of theory of mind in detail and some fun game activities to help our children
\nlearn to mind read!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cWhen we make Play the foundation of learning, we teach the Whole child\u201d- Vince Gowmon. What is Play? Many activities that children engage in have a goal or purpose. Examples […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":1276,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[146,100],"tags":[107,174,175,173,69,176,154,126],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.autismconnect.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1275"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.autismconnect.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.autismconnect.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.autismconnect.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.autismconnect.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1275"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.autismconnect.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1275\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1313,"href":"https:\/\/www.autismconnect.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1275\/revisions\/1313"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.autismconnect.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1276"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.autismconnect.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1275"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.autismconnect.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1275"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.autismconnect.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1275"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}