Promoting Play in Early Childhood Programs for Children With ASD: Strategies for Educators and Practitioners

Play skills are important for children’s development. Research has linked play skills with gains in other developmental domains including social, cognitive, and language skills. However, for many young children with disabilities, the development of this hierarchy of play skills is delayed. This article will focus on the critical need for early interventionists and early childhood classroom teachers to attend to the developmental progression of children’s play skills by first addressing the different ways play development is described and defined in literature, followed by a short introduction to assessing play level, and then focusing on strategies for supporting play in early childhood settings based on the framework of an evidence-based intervention for young children with autism spectrum disorder.