Play as a Mediator of Autism: Concerns and Possibilities

The published literature on potential treatments for young children with autistic tendencies has suggested a variety of ways to assist such children in gaining positive developmental progress. At one time most of these recommended options focused on methods using ideas from behavior modification theory and this theoretical approach still is advocated today and conducted by many practitioners, especially in relation to suggested language and social skill treatments for children with autism [1]. Many of these approaches involve parental training in the use of the reinforcement techniques [2,3]. Publications evaluating the effectiveness of this methodology have indicated that some of the studies showed positive effects, especially on language responses, and some have showed only minimal effectiveness [4,5]. However, for many years the techniques, based on behavior modification theory, have been the prevailing model of treatment reported in the literature.