I don’t think I really questioned a lot of the common everyday terminology, we use in special education until I had my daughter. I am ashamed to say that because I practiced occupational therapy for multiple years before becoming a parent and was involved in the special education process with my sister. Recently, I started to question the term appropriate play. Appropriate play is also referred to as functional play. Both words, in my opinion, are synonymous. This is why I do not use the term appropriate play not only in my practice as an occupational therapist but also as a mom.
I have come across multiple IEP goals, especially for neurodiverse students in preschool settings, that goes something like “Student J will appropriately play with 2 cause and effect toys in order to produce desired immediate feedback across three days.” Or something like “Student J will demonstrate appropriate play with a toy during centers, for 3 minutes, with minimal adult support. Check out Michelle’s blog for some goal ideas!
Mr. Potato Head
One of my favorite resources is Autism Level Up created by Dr. Amy Laurent and Dr. Jacquelyn Fede. Dr. Laurent is a psychologist, researcher, and education consultant and Dr. Fede is an autistic researcher and program evaluator. They have taught me so much about utilizing identity-first language, changing my overall perspective on special education and sensory integration, and reframing thoughts on best practice standards.
Recently on their Facebook page, they had a post depicting Mr. Potato Head. To summarize the post, a teacher came up to Dr. Fede and stated ‘so and so refuses to play functionally with Mr. Potato Head. He takes all the pieces, lines them up, puts them back in the drawer, and then closely looks at them. There is no functional play.”
To that, Dr. Fede stated “To be clear we are defining functional play as sticking human appendages into a potato. A plastic potato.”
Dr. Fede summarizes her thoughts by diving into how we define functional in regards to play. Why is sticking an arm into Mr. Potato Head considered functional play but looking at the pieces isn’t? And lastly, who decides expected routines for specific toys? It really opened my mind!
The IKEA Kitchen
Recently I bought my daughter a play kitchen with a big bucket of play food and pots/pans. I think I was more excited about the purchase than anyone in my house. I was tracking the package literally five minutes after placing the order. Thoughts pooled through my mind about all the fine motor, bilateral coordination skills, and language concepts we could target. Unfortunately, I had a prenotion plan of what I was hoping the kitchen and overall play would look like.
My daughter’s favorite thing to do with the kitchen are 2 things:
1. Take the top off the pot and spin it on our 100-year-old hardwood floors
2: Take each individual piece of food out of the bucket, carry it to our dining room, and drop it on the rug.
She was so happy and content. It made me take a step back and realize that sometimes we get caught up in the idea that toys all need a specific purpose and we need to adapt play schemes to fit our model. But play is play. We can’t treat play as a therapy session or a means to an end to collect specific data on targeted goals. Play is unwritten, free, and beautiful (singing the Nelly Furtado song in my head).
“Just because we are engaging someone in activities with toys or in a “playful manner” does not mean that we are facilitating PLAY.”
Autism Level Up
Changing Perspectives on ‘Appropriate Play’
So you know what I did with the kitchen, I got more pot lids and laid on the floor with my daughter. We spun noisy lids, laughed, and I soaked in the amazement on her face. I crawled back and forth from our playroom to the dining room tossing plastic peppers and strawberries under the table. And at the end of the day, I crawled under the same table to pick up all the pieces.
When we immerse ourselves in a child’s natural play we are able to see everything through a new lens. We are able to see all the beautiful dynamics and components. My daughter might not have stirred plastic food in pots or sorted items in the small cabinets as I had ‘planned’. But you know what I didn’t have to do? I didn’t have to give increased prompting and encouragement. It feels wrong using my ‘data language’ to describe something that is so meaningful and raw.
To conclude this example when I truly tried to understand and appreciate my daughter’s natural play, I was able to see all these amazing skills occur naturally. I saw hand manipulation skills when she was spinning pot lids. Upper extremity strength and control when tossing plastic pancakes. Balance and coordination when she was squatting down to pick up different items.
Eye Opening
I am always inspired when I listen to Sarah Selvaggi Hernandez speak and the different articles and books she puts out. For those of you that don’t know, Sarah is an autistic occupational therapist and she is always a strong advocate for individuals with autism to receives appropriate services and supports, a mother, and just an overall amazing woman. She was featured on Two Sides of the Spectrum and brought up how we as special educators and therapists sometimes view play and how that is in itself damaging.
“The primary occupation of children — young children, little children, all the children — is playing. Yet, what is the number one thing that we do? It’s we restrict and control play. And so, the thing that we can do most simply is just let an autistic person play.”
Sarah Selvaggi Hernadez quoted from her appearance on the podcast, Two Sides of the Spectrum. Click here to listen to the full interview
Car Example
She gives a powerful example that just made me sit in my car after listening to the podcast and really reflect. It took me a full round and really drove the point that an individual’s play should never be labeled ‘appropriate or ‘functional’ by another individual.
“I met a young boy who was telling me that when he was little, he’d like to line up his cars. He would put them all in a line, and then he would go back to the end of the line, and he would move each car a little bit each time. And he could do this for hours. Hours.
His parents were very supportive of this, and they really allowed him to do this. And in our conversations, you know, I said, “Well, when you were lining up those cars,” — like he was telling me how he liked to play — I said, “Well, what was happening?” And he told me the most beautiful thing, which is that this line of cars was actually a scene in a movie and that he was literally creating a race scene frame by frame in the movie. So, what he was doing was going back and advancing the position of a car, just a little bit, all the cars in the line, to mimic frame by frame what would be the movement in a racing movie.”
I think that example is so powerful and moving. Play isn’t black and white. Play is like the concept of ‘color’, everyone sees and views it a little differently. How I view the world, is probably different than you but that doesn’t negate your views and thoughts. That doesn’t make my views more superior. So why do we box in play and write unseen directions and standards?
She provides a few more examples in the podcast and also touches on additional topics about promoting positive Autistic Self identity
‘Functional’ Hobbies of a Mom
I think about my own adult life and the term appropriate. ‘
Taylor will choose and complete appropriate activities during her designated free time for 30 minutes with minimal cues for prompting and encouragement.’
I don’t think binge-watching Netflix and eating Ben and Jerry’s would count as a positive data trial. Nor would “Taylor decided to eat a bag of Ruffle cheddar cheese chips instead of running on the treadmill’. Or how about this data “Instead of completing an evaluation report, Taylor curled in a ball on the couch and scrolled through social media in two-day-old PJs.” The list could go on. And you know what, Ben and Jerry’s, Schitt’s Creek, and Target Pjs bring me a whole lot of enjoyment.
Take Away on ‘Appropriate Play’
If we can’t relate and correlate the things we ask our students, especially neurodiverse students, to what we would expect from ourselves or our own children, what is this saying? It is saying that we are holding neurodiverse children to this unattainable standard. A standard that is stripping eagerness and curiosity to explore, self-fulfillment, and self-expression.
Play is a beautiful thing and it isn’t black or white. There isn’t an instruction manual. Play is something that brings a child and person happiness, contentment, and pure joy. And that should never be measured or labeled. I am all for using play to target different goals but I want us to be honest with ourselves. We are using play to facilitate the development of certain skills we aren’t necessarily facilitating joy. And just because that child is playing and engaging with you during play does not make how they independently choose to play not functional or appropriate.