Comparison of Behaviors of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder in Different Play Settings

The purpose of this study was to compare the child behaviors of young children with autism spectrum disorder (ages 44-91 months) in different play settings. The hypothesis states that more positive child behaviors will be observed in the motor-based play setting compared to the free play setting. This study observed children (n=8) and their parent/caregiver for 10 minutes in each respective setting. The behaviors observed include child’s sustained attention, child negativity toward parent, child engagement with parent and connectedness between child and parent. Positive behaviors are defined as decreased negativity, and increased child engagement, increased sustained attention and greater connectedness with their parent/caregiver. The correlation of behaviors in the free play setting compared to the motor based settings were significant (p > 0.05) for all four behaviors. The results of this study conveyed contrary findings to the hypothesis, there were more positive behaviors in the free play setting. One conclusion for why this occurred is the familiarity of a free play setting for this age group. A confounding influence could be motor skill level