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Play therapy is a treatment approach widely used by speech-language pathologists. Symbolic play involves using toys to represent other objects or actions. Symbolic play often mimics daily routines (i.e. using a toy banana as a phone to make a “phone call.”) Symbolic play is correlated with a variety of skills such as language, social-emotional development, perspective-taking, and meta-cognition. Children can role play social scenarios and caretakers can model target words and sentences. For example, if the child and parent were using dolls and toy foods to play restaurant, the parent can say: “I am hungry”, “Let’s eat”, “More food/water please”, “Thank you”, or “Time to go.” In regard to perspective taking, if the child was playing doctor, they must think about what a doctor might say or do. Play also encourages the child to plan and organize their play routine as well as problem-solve. Additionally, children can freely express their emotions through play and better understand another person’s feelings based on the interaction. Symbolic play is encouraged for children with ASD as this type of play promotes using toys functionally, fostering many different skills, and motivating them to communicate.

Reference:

Azuma, J. (2017, September 7). The importance of symbolic play in early childhood. Different
Roads. https://difflearn.com/blogs/news/go-play-the-importance -of-symbolic-play-in-
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20child’s language skills.