THE EFFECT OF PLAY ON SOCIAL AND LINGUISTIC SKILLS OF CHILDREN WITH AUTISM SPECTRUM DISORDER

Abstract

Children who are diagnosed with autism usually have similar problems with linguistic and social skills (making eye contact, starting a dialogue or continuing dialogues…) The main aim of this study is to examine the effect of play in social and linguistic skill development of children diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD).In this study, 28 structured and semi-structured interviews were conducted with 27 parents in Izmir, Turkey (a parent had two autistic children). The Turkish translation of the Autism Behavior Checklist (ABC) (Irmak et al., 2007) was directed to the parents twice in the structured interviews in order to compare and contrast the presence of autism symptoms after the diagnosis (before play, over 6 months ago) and after play (present day). In the semi-structured interviews, open-ended questions prepared by the researchers were directed to the parents to capture and document more detailed information about the play process such as the duration and type of play. All interviews were recorded with permission, documents and dates were collected, and informed consent according to the Declaration of Helsinki was received.Analysis shows an overall decline or disappearance in nearly all attributes in the ABC. Results of the semi-structured interviews demonstrate that most frequently played games were as follows: Traditional and role play/imitation games (hide and seek, blindman’s buff…); make-believe games (house, teaching, hairdressing…) ; athletics (basketball, football…), and educational activities (drawing, card and board games…).According to the results, play affected the social and linguistic skills of autistic children positively.