Play interactions of autistic preschoolers with their mothers and fathers without toys yield more positive interactions than play with toys.
David Oppenheim, Michal Mottes-Peleg, Smadar Dolev and 1 others
PMID 40178076WHAT IT FOUND
Play without toys yielded higher emotional availability than play with toys for both mothers and fathers of autistic preschool boys.
Fathers were as emotionally available as mothers, and children were more responsive to fathers during toy-free play. These are observational comparisons, not evidence of improved outcomes.
Key findings
01All five emotional availability scores were higher during play without toys than play with toys for both mothers and fathers.
02Mother-child and father-child interactions showed no significant differences in emotional availability, except that children were more responsive to fathers during play without toys.
03Child IQ was associated with most parental and child emotional availability scores, so higher IQ correlated with more optimal interactions.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for OTsWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The study included only boys, so findings may not apply to autistic girls. All families were Jewish and two-parent households, limiting generalizability to other cultural or family structures. The same coder rated both play conditions for a given dyad, which could inflate the correlation between the two episodes. The study measured emotional availability during a brief observation, not long-term developmental outcomes or communication gains. Fathers in the sample had relatively high education levels and participated in the study, so results may not reflect families where fathers are less involved.
Declared interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest. The work was funded by the Israel Science Foundation and the Harry and Sadie Lasky Foundation.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that play without toys improves child development or language outcomes. The study measured the quality of interaction during a seven-minute observation, not whether children's skills improved over time. Emotional availability is a process measure, not a clinical outcome.