Reimagining Autistic Children’s Independent and Social Play with Peers

ABSTRACT

This article explores the nature, role and interpretive meanings of autistic children’s independent and social play with peers to inform inclusive practices. Topics include: neurodevelopmental and sociocultural influences on autistic children’s peer play experiences; limitations of a neurotypicality framework and advantages of a neurodiversity framework for delineating divergent expressions and developmental variations in play; illustration of the Integrated Play Groups model for guiding autistic and neurotypical children in co-creating an inclusive play culture; implications for inclusive practices from human rights and social justice perspectives.

KEYWORDS:

• Autism
• play
• socialization
• inclusive practices
• neurodiversity

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

¹ Throughout this paper, play will be used broadly as encompassing varied forms of play within the symbolic dimension (sensory, object, functional, pretend) and the social dimension (with a focus on peers), unless otherwise specified.

² Grunya Efimovna Sukhareva is a Soviet psychiatrist whose work and papers until recently have remained relatively obscure outside of Russia. Her work was thought to be ignored and possibly claimed by other scholars as their own (Manouilenko & Bejerot, 2015; Sher & Gibson, 2021; Zeldovich, 2018).

³ In addition to face-to-face sessions, we have also begun to offer virtual play groups via Zoom (in response to the COVID-19 pandemic). Since these are still in an experimental phase, we have chosen to mainly focus on the structure of face-to-face play sessions.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Pamela Wolfberg

Pamela Wolfberg, Ph.D., is professor emeritus at San Francisco State University where she coordinated Autism Spectrum Studies and served on faculty for the Joint Doctoral Program in Special Education with the University of California, Berkeley. As co-founder of the Autism Collective for Peer Socialization, Play and Imagination she leads research, education and global outreach efforts to advance autistic children’s social inclusion and creative expression in play and other culturally valued experiences.

Gesean Lewis Woods

Gesean Lewis Woods, M.A., is a doctoral student in the Joint Doctoral Program in Special Education, University of California, Berkeley, with San Francisco State University. Woods identifies as being on the autism spectrum, and is particularly interested in researching how to create inclusive classroom environments for differently abled students by looking into how classroom peer cultures are constructed and how students in special education can be included in the foundation of the classroom culture so that it is one of mutual respect and support.