So What *Is* Imaginative Play?

[WeThreeNinks]

My DS 2.5 wibbles his various figurines according to a plan of his own, same with his trains and cars and farm animals.

My SALT said that that isn't imaginative play and that he should be for instance pretending to make tea with a tea-set. Eh? I keep my toddler at least six feet away from scalding hot drinks!

Play ironing, (ha ) or cooking or hoovering is apparently imaginative.

That's role-play surely? And my DD was never encouraged to do such things, far from it

Enacting real-life situations doesn't seem imaginative to me compared to flying pigs but you do learn someting new every day.

So taking the Santa bauble from the Christmas Tree and placing him on the Chair bauble whilst saying, "Chair!" isn't imaginative? That's what he did earlier.

This is all very confusing but I do keep in mind the lovely DS who recently hid in the freezer cabinet pretending to be a sausage and thought that I would be so proud also if my son did that

That the phrase "imaginative play" can be expanded upon or redefined is very interesting.

And how behaviours can be interpreted in different ways.

Sorry to hear that paeds are not responding to your obvious knowledge, such as Peachy's DS3 and your DD1, lou

I think it's more the communication of what they are doing ? and the level of play. I remember getting a toy tea set from IKEA and teaching DS1 to use it and thinking 'Now what happens ?' He does now spontaneously call a cardboard box a boat and plays with it but I don't know if that is imagination or just seeing a similarity. DS2 will invent more complex scenarios - one train is going to bash into another on purpose and make it sad then the first train is going to run away laughing - but then he has the language to tell us the story as well as acting it out.

Not sure what you call it when they arrange their macaroni cheese into a circle, line their cherry tomatoes across the top to look like curly hair, then announce "it's a pasta madeleine the ragdoll!"

PMSL at all the fellow non-ironers.

My two didn't really do imaginative play when they were younger. Ds1 (9) still has no real interest in toys, unless you count his DS games.

They now have these complicated games that they play together where they act out different parts of various TV programmes and PS2 games. I can't work out whether they are just re-enacting scenes or whether it's something they've made up though.

In other areas they both have very good imaginations. Ds2's is a little too active though and he often complains that he can't switch his brain off.

Leonie DS3 has amazing joint attention- sometimes. And those times arealways with the PAed, naturally. At home you might if you are really lucky get an elbow tug to look at soemthing really special whilst he looks away,first thing eh did at Paedsoffice- you can guessgrin] LOL

We were signe dup the Sibs study but coudln't get toLondon with all 4 to manage, it was just too much tomorganise when needing a stop off at my Mum'sfor childcare (an hour in the opposite direction).

ironing?What in this house? With kids trying to abseil offmy iron and take the legs out from underneath? My dream house would have a wallmounte dboard for special items but it would never be a part of my routine tbh. It was DH's job once, and EX's befoe that but DH seems to have shed that along with a few other chores- hmmm....

Seems sensible, buut it'salong trek for us and I don'tdrive in the dark any more, so I'd have to guarantee I could be back before sunset, plus Bas is breastfed still so I would have to go- it all just got too complicated LOL.

I remain rather unconvinced that it is possible to really draw a sharp line between 'NT play' and 'ASD play'. What about computer games - do they count as imaginative or not? And, if pushing buttons in a scenario that someone else has laid out in every detail is not really 'imaginative', aren't most NT children actually doing 'ASD play'? I know they hammer us on the head with educational significance of play, etc., but at the end of the day, I think children play in order to have fun. Or are children with ASD not entitled to have some fun in their own way - must everything they do be aimed at solving 'the problem'? You can tell the whole imaginative play thing is a bit of a bugbear of mine. either

This was interesting, Leonie:

"Yes, she brings you things - but she sits them on you without so much as a single glance upwards"

DS does things to me like using a cup for a hat or feeding me a real biscuit but his attention is on my head or mouth, there's no eye-contact and he will do it repeatedly, obsessively even, with no regard to my feelings or when I have had enough.

I wonder if using people as toys is a toddler thing though...

Peachy a wall-mounted iron is a brilliant idea. In theory

Yes I agree with you sc13.

Incidentally, Ds1 (now 7) would have failed every test for imaginative play - even now perhaps - were he being looked at in a clinical setting. Yet he thrives in every way and his communication skills are excellent. DS2 is far more imaginative but he is (or was until I walked away from it all) looked at through pseudo-objective clinical eyes.......

funnily enough, I've also been fantasising about a wall-mounted iron. Very decorative it would be, no doubt.