Question about imaginative play / Girls

pastalady · February 2013

I know it is a misconception that people with ASD lack imagination, etc. When DD was going through diagnosis they kept talking about functional play. Does anyone have a kid with good functional play on the spectrum? DD plays with the whole toy (for example she has always played mommy to her babies, tried to nurse them lol, played with cars not just the wheels, etc).

A good example of her imagination is a game she invented a few weeks ago. She takes her barbies dresses off, grabs a drum stick, holds it in her barbies hands, throws the dress in the air and catches it on the drumstick. She then tells us she is catching butterflies (the dresses are sparkly tutu type dresses so yeah, kind of look like butterflies lol). So to me that screams imagination!

Yes, she is very ritualized about it though. Always the barbies in a similar order, etc. But I can easily add new elements to the game (today I added a ladybug toy).

She also started pretending to have the barbies go to the salon, she washes their hair (pretend) with her teapot, etc.

Is it more common for girls to have pretty good imaginative play? Or is it just a myth about autism? Just curious.

Unknown · February 2013

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pastalady · February 2013

Thanks for the replies. I think DD's play is definitely not open ended lol! While we can introduce new items, storylines, etc they cannot deviate too much from the original. When she's playing alone her play looks so imaginative, it's when she is with other kids you really see the difference.

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Question about imaginative play / Girls

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