pretend play in asd

[hungryhippo21]

i am hoping someone can enlighten me, ds is 2.6 and had a busy week last week. Amongst various appts he was given teddy and some food, teddy was fed by the adult (he has seen this before) so ds1 was expected to fedd teddy which he then did. What I cant understand is - yes if the food and teddy is placed in front of him he will fed the teddy because that is expected of him he know it makes the grown ups happy. When he is not being watched he will put food in cups take it out, the food becomes just more objects to fiddle with. If he does feed the teddy it is when he knows i am watching and he will smile at me expecting a big well done which he gets, the difference with his other toys is he then smiles to himself when he completes a puzzle etc.
what I am trying to get at is when he goes for appts and the say pretend play is emerging is it? or is he just doing what is expected to please adults.
Sorry loads of waffle just dont know what to make of it.

Is the ability to imitate what is being noted by the paed, if the child imitates giving teddy a drink then the child can imitate play and may develop pretend play from there?

My ds started off imitating and has developed his imaginary play through that, still lots of imitation but he is pretending.... ?

Saker: I hear what you're saying, but I also hear what Amber is saying. To the extent to which pretend play is 'learning through play', then you're probably right. But whatever happened to enjoying playing just for its own sake?
The reason why, like Lingle, I lose the will to live when I think about these pretend play tests sometimes, is that it should be about the child having a good time with whatever it is they like doing, rather than playing as passing a test, or playing as a preparation for 'normal' and 'well adjusted' adult life.
I know I should be foisting dolls and teddies on DS, but what the heck, his eyes light up when he sees a tractor...

"Try saying "I wonder who can help me with this job" in a room full of NT children and watch the queue form. If you say that in the hearing of an autistic child they will most probably ignore you."

Yes, because you haven't asked us to help you, you've said you're wondering about it. We're being entirely perfectly logical, not unco-operative. If you said 'please help me with this', normally we will, and we'll do it to the best of our ability.

Surely imaginative play is in some part the basis of theory of mind. Admittedly you wouldn't expect a 3 yr old to have developed theory of mind but you get some inkling of NT progress by making the first connection, i.e. that other people or things can eat or that in order for a teddy to be able to eat you have to feed him. I don't know, just wondering.

I understand what Amber is saying about playing with cars is more fun for her but testing cars, examining them and lining them up isn't an indication of social skills which is what they psychs and the paeds are testing. They use the teddies to replicate social interaction between real people.

I do agree there is a fine line between pretending and copying and just how you differentiate the motivation of a child who is very young or not very verbal I don't know.

Most of us have been through these tests and yes I suppose they do seem to be unrealistic. But if you don't use them how would you test a child for ASD traits if you don't present them with normal scenarios and compare them with NT children? The comparison is where the important information lies.

We've just had DS5's SALT here for his hourly session, and she brought the usual bag of goodies for him to play with...

Bubbles - Hooray!, lycra stretch sheet - YAYY! cars and bikes to match to pics - smiles all round, teddy and its bed and bath - not a flicker.

Why would my 3y/o BOY want to bathe and feed a teddy? show him a car and pretend to put petrol in, or a train and fill it with coal, then you're more likely to get a response.

I did put this to her, and she asked me if i played pretending with him (in a slightly dissaproving tone) and I said confidently "no, we have 5 boys and not one dolly between us, but we do have crashes with trains, and imaginary sheep on the line", i dont think this conformed with her 'pretending schedule'.

I just want to add, that I didnt play with dollies and babies as a child and was much more into cars and making mud pies (digging in mud with a spoon) and I have 5 healthy happy sons, who are very well cared for and loved and have excellent manners... all without the 'practice' of dollies.

I agree 3 is quite old for a boy to do these 'girlie' tasks as boys at that age are very conscious of what boys and girls play with. DS2 (27 months and NT) does not want to dress the doll at nursery or put it in a pram but he has loads of imaginative play.

Niece, you say that my lining up of cars etc isn't a test of social skills. To be honest, neither is feeding a piece of cloth with a biscuit that's actually a rattle.

My social skills developed through exactly the forms of the play I was happy to use. The cars became a question of which children wanted to play cars with me. We'd work in parallel, seeing which of two cars would go faster. We'd talk about the cars, we'd think about the test tracks, we'd co-operate to build better and greater ones. Thus are society's great engineers born (and I hasten to add that I'm not one of them ).

Our skills, our ways of socialising, are different.

Yes, that teddy test is indeed a good test of ASDs, but what makes me is the assumption that it's a broken way of being, a faulty way of being, a way of being that has no value nor meaning to us nor society. A symbol of something that needs fixing, curing, pitying. Yes, there are behaviours that definitely need help to make sure we have the widest range of choices and a good bit of peace and happiness, and so our families can cope. But there is seemingly always the assumption that NT socialisation has to be the core aim.

Heck, I was SO happy with those cars. Unbelievably so. Feeding a piece of cloth with a rattle that is supposedly a biscuit? Er, why? Still don't get it. Give me a real baby to feed a real rusk to, that's fine. Different task. Different result. Did they test for that?

We're often very good at the real thing, because it makes perfect sense to us. Maybe we honestly sometimes (not all of us, not always) don't need the play with pretend humans, pretend animals. Maybe that's something NTs need? Just thoughts.

But isn't that the point Amber (not trying to pick an argument honestly) - you preferred to pick up social skills another way. The fact that you didn't 'get' the NT was in itself an indication of a difference in your development as opposed to that of an NT child.

I have one DS with AS and one NT. The NT one may not have pretended to feed a teddy at home but he could do it in a test and probably make a game of it if he was coaxed to do it. My AS DS maybe couldn't have done (although I am not sure but then I am not sure of his DX).

TBH I don't think either the paed or the psych who saw my DS1 ever made a value judgement on the way he played but were merely made to make inferences on the difference between his development and that of an NT child. It can't be nice if you have felt that your way of playing is somehow wrong.

I still also think that by being able to attribute human behaviour to a doll or teddy is about the development of theory of mind. Cars on the whole don't have minds (unless you include Herbie in the analysis). By pretending that the teddy is a baby that wants a biscuit there are assumptions being made about human relationships.

It is difficult though. How do you test a child for ASDs? You have to make some assumptions on what is NT and what isn't somewhere down the line. Comparisons are really the only to highlight a difference short of some sort of sophisticated brain scan that probably hasn't even been invented yet.

...didn't get the NT way was ...

Sorry missed a word out!

No I didn't think it was picking an argument at all, just trying to see things from different points of view.

A teddy can be a baby, but a car can't? Why? Neither are babies. That's what's totally confusing me. What is it about a teddy that makes people think 'hey this could be a baby'? Why can't feeding petrol to a car be equally seen as a triumph of social understanding, if that's what cars drink? Perhaps it would be, but somehow I doubt it.

I'm all for the testing, but even in the opening posts we saw a worker get totally excited that a child was able to play the NT way, no matter how artificial it feels to us or how pointless it seems to us. I wonder if the emphasis isn't just far too much on us being able to mimic NTs, rather than seeing if what we do to gain social understanding is just as valid? That's the general point I'm making.

I know that having to mimic NT behaviour all my life has been a strain of unimaginable proportions. I do it to please others, but not once in my life has a single soul ever, ever said to me 'hey Amber, it's ok to be you once in a while'.

I'm not trying to say what you do/did is wrong or should be less valued, Amber, but surely it is partly why some things are more difficult for you. For example, I remember reading a description you wrote of going to the doctor's where the receptionist spoke to you about a subject you weren't expecting and you were taken off guard. Part of the purpose of pretend play as a child is to help you to develop a flexibility of mind to cope with different scenarios and to adjust to the unexpected and the unfamiliar. However I am not saying that you should have been forced to play in a way that you did not want to or been stopped from doing the things that gave you pleasure. I'm just trying to explain why I feel that pretend play is really important in development and why the professionals look for it as a sign of typical development.

Sc13, I think for neurotypical children pretend play is playing for its own sake - they do not need to be persuaded to do it and they are not consciously thinking about their own development. Pretend play doesn't have to be about dolls and teddies - putting petrol in a tractor etc would all fall into the same category.

hey! Amber! ITS OK TO BE YOU!

actually i rather like YOU, i like the way you think.

I also totally agree that the professionals can make a total mess of interpreting pretend play and play skills.

There you are then - it seems perfectly obvious to me that aside from the fact that the teddy is hairy and inanimate it is much more like a baby than a car. It has all the requisite body parts and it looks (if you look at it through slitty eyes and stand well back) like a baby....well a bit.

That is why it is better than a car. Well, from my point of view only as somebody who is supposedly NT!

I do understand your point honestly, but surely before you get to the bit where you can understand that the ASD way of learning social understanding surely you have to find out who those ASD children are. They aren't always obvious (DS1 being a case in point). How do we find out if we should be looking for a different way of social understanding or not? That is the difficulty.

I am truly sorry that you don't ever feel that you have been able to be you by the way. That is really sad.

What would happen if you were just yourself though? Would it make your life impossible?

hey, you're the first person who's ever said, that, Misscutandstick Thanks!

Saker, yes, I find some things much harder. There again, I find some things much easier than you do, I'd say. What's different is the contrast between my skills (on some levels absolutely extraordinary) and my inabilities (arrghh).

Now you see I am a person of faith, and my own faith says to me that any negative experience can be turned into something good, something we can learn from. Yes, I find unexpected conversations difficult, for example, but I can normally set things up so that I'm surprised the least possible number of times. I can learn techniques for coping, or at least appearing to cope, and learn how to give myself the space I need to be me.

And having to pace myself a bit is no bad thing. I learn more from sitting in a quiet woodland and thinking about the beauty around me than from spending time gossiping about person x's relationship with person y, I'd say. I've learned to value difference, to enjoy people for all they bring, to be prepared to listen to those who speak in different ways and learn in different ways. I truly believe that each of us is worth loving, worth knowing, no matter what our level of social skill or speed of response.

Yes, I'd love to be able to adapt a little faster in conversations. But if I can't do it after 45 years of training and practice, I'm thinking I'm at the limit of what can be achieved. There again, I own and run a business, have a family, have a husband, am an adviser, am a school Governor. What else would I need to achieve by being able to adapt my conversations faster than I do?

My way of being is different, and for all its problems and challenges and differences, it's me. It's how I am. I don't yearn to be NT. That's entirely my own choice, for me, as I've said often on here. Not a choice I would force on others who may wish to be born a different person with different skills.

So...in summary...yes, being able to get our needs met by communicating well in some way, having choices, having friends, those are all important. Letting us find ways to do those things that respect our differences is, I think, also important. Er, does that make sense?

Niece, what would happen if I was allowed to be me? It'd be great for me. Wonderful. Brilliant.

Arguably I have that freedom at home when it's dh and me, since we're both ASD, but in all my communications online, with other friends etc it's me who has to do 100% of the adapting. NT people don't, for all their superior mimicking skills and social skills. For some reason it never translates to them wanting to try. Sometimes I wonder why.

Saker: thanks for your point. DS does do pretend play with other things, I guess I'm just freaking out that he won't feed the dolly at the appt and they won't take my word that he does other things.
Niecle: I think what you say about the need for some criteria for an ASD dx is spot on.
Amber: "what makes me sad is the assumption that it's a broken way of being, a faulty way of being, a way of being that has no value nor meaning to us nor society. A symbol of something that needs fixing, curing, pitying. Yes, there are behaviours that definitely need help to make sure we have the widest range of choices and a good bit of peace and happiness, and so our families can cope. But there is seemingly always the assumption that NT socialisation has to be the core aim."
Thanks for saying that; I needed to hear something like that. I started another thread precisely because I'm trying to get my head round the socialization thing - this thread has been very useful in opening up discussion on pretend play and social skills.

Amber - it makes good sense - and of course you have the right to be totally yourself and you are obviously doing a brilliant job and contributing a lot more than many NT people - no-one would say otherwise. You clearly put a lot of thought into your actions and words and are careful and considerate towards others and you are not being unreasonable to expect the same response from them. If I could look into the future and say, yes Ds2 will have a life like yours and be generally happy then I would be delighted. Unfortunately as you say, not everyone with ASD has equal skills or opportunities and then as parents we are faced with the decision as to what we can do to try and make life easier for them. (In our case we have chosen the RDI route to try and help Ds2 learn the NT development he is missing out on. We may be mistaken and it may be the wrong approach; more likely it won't change things substantially either way in the long run, only time will tell.)

Saker, yes, it's why a lot of my time is spent with the agencies trying to ensure that there is the right help, support, training, education, etc for each person with an ASD whether they are very low-functioning with very challenging self-injury behaviours or very high functioning and feeling suicidal because there's not a jot of help or understanding, or indeed anyone in between. If I was sat on my bum feeling smug about me having these things, I'd be kicking my own backside round the room until I got a different attitude. Because I can speak, can explain, I think it's vital that I do all I can to help explain and help advocate for as many with an ASD as I possibly can. I've campaigned for respite care, I've campaigned for better treatment in faith communities, I've campaigned for the Autism Bill, for fairer rights for carers, etc.

I won't always get it right, but for me the big thing is 'respect'.

I feel that sometimes society doesn't respect people with an ASD as individuals, but society does too often see us as broken, something to be pitied or fixed. That's not the same as lending a respectful hand to us, helping us in caring ways. I don't doubt that the parents here are lovely and respectful and etc etc - I'm not criticising anyone here. But the attitudes in some places are very extraordinary, and very disempowering for many of us.

Anyway, shall stop feeling sad(which I kind of do today) and go have a nice cup of tea...

Very honest and powerful statements Amber.

I hope that I am teaching my dc's to value difference; I would like them to feel confident in themselves so that they can challenge inequality/bigotry/exclusion.

Hope you enjoyed that cup of tea and I feel a bit sad today also which is ok.

btw my nt DD whould not get the pretend rattle as biscit would just look in digust , mind she has 3 brother so its trains cars and mud all round here

my ds2 (7) has dyspraxia and as/hfa traits (still awaiting official dx of the as/hfa) and does not pretend play- as far as he is concerned, if it is not there, it doesnt exist, and if it is there he is unable to pretend it is something else. i have watched him playing with dd's (3 and 4) and they have grasped pretend play whilst he has not. for instance, he bought a bakugan toy when we were in town at the weekend, he plays the proper bakugan game with it against his sisters, they however, use any toy they can find and pretend it is a bakugan so they can play with him. he is unable to accept that the toys the girls have, are in fact pretending to be bakugan, and will argue until he is blue in the face that they are not playing the game properly. it drives me nuts, but i know that he cant help it, he takes everything at face value, and i have to be so careful what i say to him, because he takes everything so literally.

I was at a conference with the top autism brain scientist that talked about some of this, and it was very interesting.

They bunged people into a very good brain scanner whilst showing them pictures of things. Some are faces, some are cars or trains or motorbikes, some are toys, some are household things, etc. They watched which bit of the brain did the thinking when it saw that picture.

All the adults with 'ordinary brains' (I know there's no such thing, but you know what I mean) use exactly the same bit of the brain to 'see' people - a bit on the side not far from the ear. It seems this bit of the brain is designed to spot faces - it must be the brain's filing cabinet on who's who.

Curiously all the children with no ASD used a different bit - they weren't expecting that! Seems the brain keeps changing for years and years by itself anyway).

But the adults with an ASD used just about any old bit of the brain to work out who's who, and were fairly rubbish at identifying or analysing faces. Not completely rubbish - we do have some skills, but nowhere near as good or fast as other people for this.

What they noticed is that the people with an ASD were using that bit of the brain - the very sophistical "people filing cabinet" - for their favourite hobby instead. It only switched on when they were looking at their different types of cars, buses, trains, dogs, horses etc. And toys like teddies were completely irrelevant - nothing to do with people and faces at all: Because we don't have a really high-quality 'people bit' in our brain, our brains just never look for "things similar to people". It means nothing to us. Not a thing. Not unless we collect info on All the Teddies That Have Ever Been Made, anyway.

This is why the teddy test is fine for spotting ASDs, but it's not going to make us think that teddies are people, no matter how often it's done. Our brain isn't built that way at all.

So what's happening when an ASD child is being taught to feed a teddy and finally gets it right? Well, they're noticing that if they do it, you make funny noises, which is amusing or intriguing. So they do it again to see if you make the same noises again. People think we're 'caring more' about the teddy. Nope. That's not what's happening here folks.

oooh, i find that very interesting , many thanks for taking the time to share

Do you think this kind of research could lead somewhere, say for instance, instead of having to go thru years of tests and being bounced from professional to professional, it may be as simple as a quick brain scan?

Im not looking for a 'quick fix' here, but just a twinkle of hope that the 'system' may work for us, instead of against us.

Oh yes indeed. These scans can apparently pick up ASD very fast, but they are SO expensive and SO rare that there's no hope of it happening for most people. The standard tests are a cheaper and faster option for now.

If they can use the testing to find out which bits of the brain are the fastest and slowest for that person, they can maybe help them tailor re-training to really help improve the things that person would like to improve. That'd be good.

I pity the poor brain surgeons who ever try to operate on us. Can you imagine the puzzled look on their faces when they delve about and think "hold on a minute - that's not supposed to be there!".