Is this considered improvement? | Autism PDD

Is this considered improvement? We were told several times by different evaluators that my dd's play was functional and repetitive and lacked creativity and social modeling. Just in the past week she's decided that she wants to play dress up, mostly just with jewelry. I got her some play jewelry and gave her some of my old necklaces. She's somewhat obsessive about it, putting it on and off nonstop first thing when she gets up and last thing before story time. Not sure if this is considered pretend play or just another outlet for the functional repetitive play. Any thoughts?

Thanks!

I think it's great that she's expanding her play repertoire to dress-up. It doesn't sound quite like pretend-play, but we don't know what imaginative things that may be going on in her head.

It sounds like a great springboard to help her learn how to play princess or tea party. Autism Teaching Tools gives some hints on how to teach your child ever more complex variations of tea party:

http://www.autismteachingtools.com/page/bbbbtc/bbbbtg

They also have a description of the 10 stages of play kids typically go through by age 5. Here's the link, in case you haven't seen it.

http://www.autismteachingtools.com/page/bbbbfg/bbbbtj

You might also like this play skills checklist. If you have a follow-up appointment with the evaluator(s), you could maybe discuss these skills in greater depth -- it doesn't sound like they were very clear with you about what they had observed.

http://www.brookespublishing.com/steps/PlaySkillsChecklist.p df

Hi, my dd loved dress up and putting on jewelry. She had to always put on these crazy outfits whenever American Idol came on, it was so cute:) I always described my dd as playing with the dresses but never playing the part. She was never a princess or a pirate, she just dressed like one. My dd does not pretend play, she only plays with a purpose. She is five and I think she is asd, no dx though.

[QUOTE=alwaysworried2]She was never a princess or a pirate, she just dressed like one. My dd does not pretend play, she only plays with a purpose. She is five and I think she is asd, no dx though.[/QUOTE]

Oh my goodness, you nailed it. Yup I think that's exactly what my dd is doing.

Norwaymom, thanks for the links!

Mason was like this and then all of a sudden expanded to dressing up too...I found a bunch of old halloween costumes at garage sales and made him a dress up box...he has things like Mr. Incredible, Ninja Turtles, Pirate, Batman, Spiderman etc...in the beginning he would just dress up and not really do the role playing that went with it...just walk around wearing his different costumes...not long after that though he expanded into making different gestures that the characters made...adding certain sound effects, etc.

He doesn't have the imagination that most kids have at this age, but he is definitely adding some creativity to his role playing. I'm hoping this spreads to other areas of play!

I think this is a new step to some great playing coming on for your dd!

Catherine, I would consider that a great improvement. My ds is going to be 5 next month. And just in the last few months, he has started doing things like that. Draping a blanket across his back and playing superhero and showing quite a bit more of imaginative play. My dd is almost 8 and she has always done it, but i think she may be mild aspergers, and I am going to ask her doctor at her next appt. to start evaluating her.

Good luck, I hope she keeps it up.