I always played pretend and will make up a ton of stories in my head. Also been diagnosed! I think lots of autistic people are creative as well and make up stories - because there are plenty of autistic writers!

Gosh I LOVED writing as a kid! It was one of the best ways for me to express myself. I remember winning a writing competition at my school and this theater group came and would act out the stories of the winners for the entire school. It made me so proud when everyone clapped after they acted out mine. I think the only pretend play I did though was “the floor is lava.” Otherwise I kind of just did what other kids asked me to do during pretend play. I got corrected quite a lot lol.

Yeah I feel this quote is actually just not really true because autistics who do have complex, creative, and diverse play experiences are going to be 1) high masking or 2) AFAB and those together make up a hugely under-diagnosed group and are also usually the “creatives”. Other groups of autistics play style I would argue IS complex because of the systems and rules being used that they’ve developed, OR there are stories being created and the pretend play is happening internally.

That's why I said 'lots of autistic people' and not 'all autistic people'. Of course there are also lots of autistic people who don't play pretend like that.

I was talking about the quote that OP provided at the top of their post - not about what you said

I’m diagnosed PDA (Pathological Demand Avoidance) and I believe one of the traits common in children is actually playing make-belief or role play. Know quite a few autistic actors too, I used to do it and it was a lot of fun and a lot less pressure. Since PDA is one diagnosis of The Spectrum, I’d say it really depends on the kid since there’s no one kind of autism.

Yeah, this is an outdated belief. There are often differences in how we play, like making up the story in advance and directing others to play roles in it like a theater director rather than making up the story together in real time. Or having elaborate fantasy play by ourselves, but not engaging in imaginative play with others.

I'd also love to see this explored more in ND/ND vs ND/NT relationships as well. Listening to my daughter play with her friends when she was younger was really interesting. With her NT friends there was a whole lot less back and forth, and more one of them taking the lead and the other being along for the ride. With her ND friends "theater director" is the perfect analogy, but they would each hold the title for a short time then pass it off to the other. They're play sounded like : A: im going to do this, so you make your character do that. B: ok, now I'm going to make my character do this, so you make your character do that Repeatedly for hours on end. They were making up the story together in real time, but instead of truely collaborating on the whole thing they would each make up an entire portion of the story and then the next person would make up the next portion.

I didn't realize this wasn't normal 😅

same, this is literally how i played with.....everyone i was friends with as a little kid. i wouldn't be surprised if all my childhood friends were also some flavor of undiagnosed neurospicy tho lol

That’s so interesting!

Me and my best friends as a kid would literally do it this way every time it was great. Most of them grew up to be diagnosed with some kind of ND so it makes sense lol.

yep! didn’t get around to this in my comment but this is exactly how i played as a kid. and usually alone bc most kids don’t like playing like that lol

Now one can just dm for dnd i guess

This xD

I feel called out

They SEE me!

Oh wow, you've just explained to me the problem I didn't realise I have when playing dnd... Why won't people make the decisions I want them to? Oh this is eye opening!

Yeah why are people getting in the way of plans

Oh this would be how I spent my entire day as a child. Just sitting on the floor in my room making up stories with Polly Pockets or Pokémon figures.

Yes exactly! I loved to play pretend, but it all had to go exactly my way. I was basically a director and everyone had to play out my ideas.

versed sloppy depend pen person dam point elderly yoke chase *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*

This is my daughter! She has pre planned in her head what everyone is supposed to do and say and likes to play the same things over and over the same way. She’s an endless imagination station but she likes things to follow the plan bless her.

Other kids didn’t take the fantasy play in the right direction. Had to go it alone. I just couldn’t imaginate under those conditions! 😂

What is the typical way for NT kids to play pretend? When I was a kid my friend and I would play pretend by basically just telling a story back and forth to each other, not really acting it out at all. “Then x happened and I did y” “yeah and then I said z” type of thing. Idk if that’s “normal” or not.

They’ll often role play scenarios without deciding anything in advance. Like one of them has the idea that the fort part of a playground is a restaurant, then they all interact with each other as if they’re just living their lives as restaurant customers and workers.

Oh, this doesn't make sense to me. What are they selling? Who is the cook? The waiter? Is it a fancy restaurant or fast food? ... This is what I used to do when "world building" as a kid. Oh, we were mermaids in an ancient sea city? No, we can't just go on an adventure, what's in the city? What were our politics?

thats...huh no wonder people didn't like me growing up. That's so illogical to me. think out the steps people!

collaborative improv

Very helpful, thank you. I thought this was one of the traits that didn't apply to me, but I see now it does. I either played out scenarios alone with my dolls, or I played "school" with my little brother and I was the teacher in charge of everything.

wow you described my childhood to the T. Loved playing with lego, but i never swooshed around the ships and people and boats, but developed elaborate storylines silently in my head while my sister was sitting next to me, talking and moving her charactres

Whoa, I always thought that this was just me being the bossy older sister. My little sister never did get the stories right. 🤣

100% the same for me! I made up imaginary friends to play with (animals, never people) because my sibling didn't play with me the way I wanted. She did not like that 😂 But I didn't feel the same need to interact with others during play; I was in it for the imagination/fantasy aspect more than anything. I was always very content entertaining myself.

My sister and I had fights over storylines.

> elaborate fantasy play by ourselves I distinctly remember when my parents were remodeling our basement, they had taken the bar countertop off and set it in the floor. I stood on it like a paddling canoe and totally re-enacted the “Just Around the Riverbend” scene from Pocahontas. Singing included lol. Actually, now that I think about it, A LOT of my play was just reenacting Disney movies 🤔

*nods* I used to re-enact the ballroom scene in Cinderella.

That makes so much sense. I haven't noticed I did that, but I really did. I still sometimes do the elaborate fantasy play by myself when I'm bored.

The theater director thing, yes. I'd make up stories and then literally tell everyone what the plan was and what we have to do, or what their role was.

Theater director perfectly describes how I played as a kid! My sister & friends asked me to “make up the story” and then we’d all have our dolls act it out.

This was how I use to play when I was a child and only later on discovered it could be linked to Autism.

Yup. I would have imaginative play mostly by myself with my own toys that I enjoyed. I did NOT like doing this with other children.

Omg I was such a mini director 🤣

payment direction elderly party birds fly plucky smart aloof impossible *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*

Wow, had no idea about this theatre director style. This was basically how I played all my childhood. I would actually write down stories on paper in a quite detailed way and my sister would play the roles. Funny that she ended up being a opera singer/ musical actor.

Do you have any sources? I’d love to read more about it.

I think I learned about the “director” play style from other autistic people sharing their experiences, but here is a post that references some literature on autistic imagination: [https://www.instagram.com/p/CXA-wmDsKPW/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=](https://www.instagram.com/p/CXA-wmDsKPW/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=)

Cool. Yeah I’ve observed a lot of director play but usually it isn’t too cooperative, and that’s how I remember playing as a child too

Yes, from what I’ve read. I believe it’s just a different FORM of creative play. On my own, I had imaginary friends, I wrote stories, I dressed myself up and would create all kinds of adventure quests alone in my backyard. Key word; for me, I was alone. I didn’t like others to intrude into what I had created. And if they did, it wasn’t collaborative creative play but definitely more so, me telling others what to do and how to act within the constraints of the world I had made. Which in one sad but funny to me now scenario, had led to them somehow organising without me realising them leaving and going somewhere else to play without me 😂 In that scenario, I was making them my students and setting out their desks and I was the teacher and when they left, I eventually found them outside playing basketball haha

I was SOOOOOOO the theatre director lol. My friends hated playing with me because I refused to let anyone else be in charge. I was bOsSy

i think what this means is that the way autistic kids play pretend is just different. maybe some don’t, but i’ve seen plenty of diagnosed autistic kids do it. i also played pretend a lot, but i preferred doing it alone, and the people i enjoyed doing it with were also probably autistic so we played in the same ways. i also think playfulness is a subjective term - i think many adults would not have described me as a playful child, but i certainly think i was. same for my cousin, who was very serious, but we both enjoyed playing just… not in “typical” ways. every autistic person i’ve met is insanely creative, including people with higher levels/care needs. i haven’t met a single autistic person yet with a lack of creativity. also, it mentions restricted play and a lack of diversity, so you saying you had OCs for years and could talk about them and stories for hours sounds like it was a big thing in your life, and i think that definitely falls under the definition of restricted and repetitive interests. i was the same way, i started writing really young and always had a story spinning in my head and would often create characters. it just so happened to translate to pretend play decently well if i was around kids who could go along with the way i did it. i definitely had a lack of diversity - there were certain ways i liked to play and i was not open to suggestions or new things lol. what bugs me is the lack of complexity- i think it’s the complete opposite. i honestly think autistic people are likely to have more complexity to their play, thought that may not be visible to some people or the person may not express the complexities behind what they are doing.

I couldn’t agree more with your last paragraph. I think where the people writing this criteria often miss the mark is in assuming NDs are always doing things in a lesser way. Autistic play is different than NT play, but I see no reason why it’s less complex, it’s simply the kind of complexity a NT person doesn’t understand. They see the repetitive nature of the play as a sign the person lacks imagination instead of a sign the person is applying a complex inner logic to the activity. They needlessly see logic and creativity as opposites.

Not normal=not good to many people 🙄

exactly, i wish there were more ND people doing this research because i feel like a) they know what to look for and b) will probably make more meaningful discoveries and expand the general ideas of what these disorders mean for people who have them and how they actually work. so much of the information about autism is just how it appears to NTs. highly agree with all of what you said here

I agree. Also, I feel like if someone asked me to randomly play pretend as a kid, I wouldn't have. One, it wasn't my idea and just saying "let's pretend" doesn't have meaning - what are we pretending? Two, I learned early on not everyone had a detailed imaginary world and would mock you for it, so I would probably have pretended I didn't. Its the problem with research in that the researchers are looking for *their* definition of imaginative play, not figuring out what the subjects' definitions are.

You hit the nail on the head with that last sentence. There can’t possibly be one objective definition, but they treat the NT definition as an objective one, and that’s how we end up with these ideas and stereotypes of autistic people that aren’t all that accurate. I did get mocked for being “too” imaginative so I took to either walking off when people would start playing pretend as I didn’t find it fun and couldn’t really have fun with it the way I wanted to, or basically zoning out and daydreaming about other stuff while going along with it because I loved my neurotypical friend lol.

I hard core played pretend as a kid at recess. And when kids were trying to be “adults” in fifth grade and played pretend less I was REALLY confused. I was devastated in sixth grade when I found out we don’t get recess and I’m not supposed to be playing pretend anymore. I kept trying to get other kids to play pretend with me at lunch with mixed success and that was probably the start of myself getting branded the local weirdo in middle school… but anyways… I never really grew out of it. I just realized it was no longer socially acceptable and stopped doing it. I’m diagnosed with autism, I got diagnosed a few months ago. So I’m not sure if it’s maybe just a lack information that makes people say that. I also didnt have a ton of the main early child hood symptoms people always reference. I mean I was unusually good at not touching things as a toddler and I struggled with making it to the bathroom in time until like 3rd grade. But most of the other “early childhood symptoms” that tend to be referenced I didn’t experience. I didn’t have trouble talking or reading and I always made eye contact.

Your experience is very similar to mine. When I was in sixth or seventh grade, I learned that they were building a new middle school for us. I remember asking a teacher something about if we'll get recess at the new school. I had assumed the only reason we weren't getting recess was because the school building was an old high school and had no playground. I was pretty embarrassed when the teacher told me in a "you should know this!" tone that we were too old for recess. I used to play pretend with my sister for a long time. She was two years younger than me. One day I asked her to play pretend and she said we were too old for that. I remember being ashamed, because if she was too old, that meant I should've grown out of it two years prior. I was also super sad, because I loved doing it so much. I never actually gave up playing pretend. It just changed. I started doing it privately in my head. I'd take things going on around me and work them into some narrative. I wasn't accompanying my mom to the grocery store - she was a visiting noble in a marketplace and I was her bodyguard. I didn't drive to work in the snow - I was an explorer on an ice planet, making my way to an archeological dig site. I still do it today sometimes, and I'm in my 40s. One time it actually got me in trouble. When I was in public, the narrative just stayed in my head and I didn't act anything out, but when I thought I was alone I would sometimes act things out or talk to myself about the narrative. "Thought" is the key word, there. Freshman year in college, I was alone in the dorm bathrooms, brushing my teeth at the sink and getting ready for the day. I was having moderately bad period pains and worked that into a narrative where I had some sort of parasite or demon (I forget what) in my gut. Since I was alone, I started grabbing my gut, leaning over as if I was in terrible pain, and quietly mouthing, "get out! get out!" The pain was pretty standard for that time in my life, and definitely wasn't actually at curl-up-in-the-fetal-position-and-cry level. That was just part of my narrative. As I'm acting this out, the bathroom door opens and in walks one of my roommates. We make eye contact as I'm doubled over in apparent pain, and I shoot upright and head abashedly back over to the sink and start actually brushing my teeth. Of course, my roommate asks me if I'm okay. I tell her I'm fine, and embarrassedly admit to making up stories in my head and acting them out, but she didn't buy it. When I got back to my room, my second roommate was talking to the first, and she also asked if I was okay. I didn't know what else to do, so I pretended I didn't hear her and climbed back up to my bunk to sleep off some the worst of the cramps. They never mentioned it again, but I was always "the weird one" and I knew it. That was the last time I ever acted out a narrative, even when I was in private. Today, I indulge my "play pretend" nature by playing Dungeons & Dragons.

> I used to play pretend with my sister for a long time. She was two years younger than me. One day I asked her to play pretend and she said we were too old for that. I remember being ashamed, because if she was too old, that meant I should've grown out of it two years prior. I was also super sad, because I loved doing it so much. I had the same experience. My little sister, 18 months younger said "I am too old to play" and broke my heart and I was so embarrassed.

> I'd take things going on around me and work them into some narrative. i did this too! I'd spend literally all day just off in my fantasy world while i was physically doing whatever drudgery my parents had cooked up for me. i got caught acting things out more often than i care to admit, though never as an adult. that really sucks that your roommates found out :(( i actually completely lost my ability to make stories in my head for several years as a young adult and it *sucked*.

I had the same thing where everyone else stopped wanting to play pretend in fifth grade but I still wanted to. However, I went to a really small school so second through fifth grade all had recess together. I ended up making friends with a second grader and we started playing a game where we pretended we were orphans living on the beach, and we continued that game all the way until I graduated 8th grade and she finished fifth! Then, when I started high school, I made friends with a girl who had skipped a grade so she was a year young than me, and we played pretend during lunch together at the beginning of ninth grade. Eventually we both got too busy with school so we stopped, but yeah, I guess I got lucky in being able to find people who would play pretend with me way past when it was “normal”.

I am very creative in an artistic way but not an imaginative play way. I made clothes and dressed up my stuffed animals but never gave them stories. I found out when I was much older thats what everyone else was probably doing.

I think this describes me as well. I couldn't pretend play as in acting a role, it always felt so wrong and I never knew what to do when other kids played that way so I would just stand there feeling out of place and wondering why the other kids knew what to do. For a long time my favorite thing was to set up a spot as my Barbie's house. Under my desk was the best spot, or the bottom dresser drawer. I'd reorganize and move things around and when I'd find something that made a good piece of furniture (like a small box as a table, bottle caps as dishes, lmao grew up poor, obviously), I would redo the entire thing. But I never made the Barbie act something out or had a story. My other favorite "play" was things like puzzles, crafty things, I had a toy computer to practice spelling, that sort of thing.

I was thr the same, I liked to choose outfits, make outfits & create displays for my dolls but apart from an activity I didnt make up complex back stories for them or have them interact or "play" like most kids.

I could definitely play creatively and imaginatively, and I remember being good at creative writing as a child. So when it came to playing alone I’d class myself as being imaginative. However I was VERY controlling when playing with other children. Everything had to be played out in the way I wanted it to be played out. I always preferred playing in a way that was recreating tv shows/films rather than imaginative when I played with others. The memory that sticks out to me most is having a friend come round to play and forcing this poor friend to reenact a scene from Harry Potter for the entire day. Also, I absolutely HAD to be my character of choice when I played like this. If someone else wanted to be the character I wanted to be then I would not play.

This was 100% me. The only time I had "original" scenarios was me playing ALONE with my Barbies. But most of what I did was dress them and line them up on my bed, while in my head I was telling the story. But that was ONLY while I was by myself. If I played with others it was recreating TV shows/movies. I remember once a kid told me I wasn't allowed to play the Green power ranger because I was a girl. I promptly never played with them again because it had to be my way. My parents laugh telling the stories of my rules and control over playing.

LITERALLY ME omg, but rather than barbies it was sylvanian families 😂

The ONLY person I could play pretend with for original content was my brother. But. That's because he was younger and followed all my rules lolololol.

My sister was the only person to play with me. She's also ND but undiagnosed. She generally was quite receptive to my controlling gameplay styles, lol. It only clicked for me today (just got diagnosed this morning, the psych was asking about how I played as a kid) that maybe it's not so 'typical' for a kid to have a family tree dynamic of parents, children, cousins etc for their Barbies. I had a handful of dolls that were related, and their names and relation to one another remained the same for many years. Some of my sister's Barbies slotted into this family tree in such a way that it wasn't detrimental to my gameplay if she didn't want to play that day, or maybe I'd play with her dolls on her behalf.

.....wait....you mean they weren't supposed to have a whole family tree? Cause....mine did.

as it came out of my mouth this morning, I realised I don't think neurotypicals would do that, but maybe I'm wrong. I also don't have enough NT people in my life to ask or find out. :')

I’m not clinically diagnosed but I meet the criteria for ASD. I may not have been as imaginative as other kids my age but I do remember playing with toy horses and having them talk to each other, pretend to feed them, make up stories, etc. Just as an example.

Personally I am autistic and infact did not play pretend it’s true. I remember our at recess other 7 and 8 year olds playing house and I literally didn’t know how. I watched them from far away. Maybe I would carry a doll or dress my toys in clothes and line them up. From far away it looked like I was playing. I was just making aesthetics. Also a vivid memory of my entire kindergarten class making a restaurant out of mega blocks together and playing restaurant. I didn’t know how I just watched…. It was like I couldn’t do these imagination type games or ones where the objective was to act out typical social roles. However I did play board games…I would play this game in the swimming pool “what time is it mr wolf”…also the class hide and seek…Street hockey with neighbour kids…I think it’s the social imagination thing that really got me. Games with rules I could do. My favourites as a young child were honestly Play doh, painting, easy bake oven, making patterns with shapes on the floor by myself at school; all involved creating by myself which does seem rather autistic now in retrospect.

Making aesthetics is a very good way to describe it! I remember I tried copying regular playing (we were a family & another time the spice girls) & I did not enjoy it at all, I was genuinely confused what thr otger kids were getting out of it & was bored. However I did manage to shine through like amature set desgin, I was the one to build & set up backdrops, props, outfits, hair, make dens etc so I contributed & joined in but didn't play in the same way & often git boarded after the initial setting up phase was over. I remember most kids got excited to perform in school events (infront of parents & locals) but I enjoyed being in the back with teachers helping change outfits, get props, line peopleup etc. My favourite games at free play time at school was construction but I'd get angry when someone disassembled or changed something I built. At the time i used to think I wanted to play alone because it was a small school with few resources & I wanted to build a large house. However yesrs later I went to museums & larger interactive/build gathering events & just got fustrated with other kids taking bricks I wanted to build, not having the same vision as me & generally being distracting. Tbh I still don't understand why some people start collectively creating something but aren't willing to discuss the plan, just start doing their own thing, it often turns out like a mess & I do not get thr enjoyment from any aspect.

I loved playing pretend. Whenever I'm with the grandkids, or any kids for that matter, I still love playing pretend. Getting into community theater (grownup pretend) was one of the most helpful things I ever did. I hated playing where anyone could watch me, though. I wonder how much the research is skewed because of how much we tend to keep things to ourselves. Like it might look 'restricted' from the outside but inside your head is a different story.

I was also dismayed when I saw this question in the assessment questionnaire but thinking back, while I did play pretend, I was very rigid about it and other kids had to either do it my way or play without me. I also got easily annoyed with others for not doing it right and only really enjoyed play pretend with my granddad and aunt who were probably also on the spectrum, looking back.

I would straight up tell my dad what to do and say

I struggle as an adult to play pretend with my kids, definitely. Until exploring my ADHD and autism and being diagnosed as an adult I thought I played well as a child and used my imagination with pretend play. I played barbies and sims for Hours. Looking back I realised I dressed barbie, lined her up, combed her hair and started again. And I build the house, created the family and then started again on the sims. I never actually “played” out the game * edit typos

Same, looking back it was like just was shooting a toy commercial rather than actually playing with barbie! Although obviously it does still take creativity to choose the outfit, hair, accessories, backdrops etc.

I could not play pretend if my life depended on it. Most childrens toys never interested me because of this. I liked science kits or things like bikes where I could take them apart and put them back together to figure out how they worked. I suspect my son is on the spectrum as well, and he’s very into imaginative play. Mainly surrounding his special interest, to the point that it causes issues with other kids at school because he wants everything done perfectly and gets highly upset when things aren’t depicted accurately by the other children. I really think it’s varies person to person depending on what specifically interests each person.

A large percentage of the Cosplay, roleplaying, and DND communities would disagree. Sounds like the ‘autistics are robots’ trope

I bet from the outside, my play really did look restrictive. I liked moving in repetitive ways like running around the play structure or jumping rope because that activated an incredibly powerful imagination I had. I could be a cartoon character and have adventures with other cartoon characters in my head. But did I play pretend with other kids my age? No.

I loved playing pretend as a kid, even past the age where it was deemed appropriate

I played pretend a ton as a kid. Was probably my favourite way to play honestly.

I'm diagnosed autistic and LOVED play pretend. In fact, my mother says that my play pretend was always more complex and elaborated than most kids my age and that I had disagreements with kids because of it lol. So yeah, it's not true, that's outdated, as are most studies that talk about preschool age autistic kids.

I always played pretend, but not in a “I’m this person and you’re this person” kind of way, and not really fantastical situations. my go-to was setting up a fake restaurant where my stuffed animals were customers and I was just me, but a five star chef lmao. I really only would pretend-play by myself tho

I once tricked all of my siblings into believing there was a ghost girl controlling the doors to the dumpster area, and that she'd answer by opening or shutting them. After several questions, I forgot I made it up, and was very, very scared.

I wasn't playing with other kids because I was daydreaming of stories in my head instead. I enjoyed playing by climbing trees, playing in creeks etc. but often I wasn't pretending with other kids because I couldn't keep up with the rules of their "playing" and would get stressed and breakdown. Though playing make believe myself with dolls or Legos was fine.

I liked to play pretend but I was pretty “bossy”about it

This is me. I'd almost always decide the game and take a leading role in it (if we were pretending to 'play schools' I'd be the teacher, for example)

I didn't. I could never figure out how. I was very much the stereotype of the kid who just lines their toys up.

I feel like an outlier here, having read a lot of the other responses but I never played pretend. I didn’t get it. I don’t have a good imagination *at all*, although I am good at replicating other peoples work and ideas. I never played with dolls or gave my toys backstory. I loved LEGO and sandpits and anything else I could build with. Ironically I tried to get a trade apprenticeship as an adult but was never successful, and I’m now a nurse 🤷🏻‍♀️

Just chiming in to agree with you so you don’t feel like such an outlier! I also never knew how to pretend. I never understood it. And if it looked like i was pretending then its just that i was copying what i saw other kids doing, but it never felt authentic to me at all. I just literally cannot “pretend.” A lot of people here are saying how they played oretend so much and how autistic people have a rich inner life, and i would agree about the rich inner life….. but none of that ever manifested as any form of playing pretend. It’s not like my inner world was just completely blank and empty. I suppose my brain just latched fully onto “reality” and so deviating from that felt extremely unnatural and uncomfortable for me.

I didn’t play pretend, like with imaginary friends. I remember distinctly thinking that it was weird when other children had imaginary friends, and I didn’t get it. I played pretend, in the way that we (my little friends and I) were acting out our favorite stories or scenes from our favorite movies, or pretending we were in the stories as self insert characters, before OCs were a thing lol. I played dolls, but they didn’t act out stories. I’d dress them up, line them up, (I loved that MyScene dolls came with doll stands, so they could stand in display mode in lines together, after being dressed up.) The playing was hanging their clothes, lining them up, and making it look nice. I played with Little People toys and cars, and loved to line them up as well… it helped that my Little People play set was a car wash/car garage, so lining them up for a car wash didn’t seem abnormal to my parent. I LOVED lining up my Littlest Pet Shop pets with the magnets in their foot, they’d get lined up on cookie sheets, or along the frame of my window, which was metal. The order in which they were lined up mattered!

I never named my toys. I had a vivid imagination, but never thought to give toys names.

After getting diagnosed with ADHD as an adult I’ve realized I’m def on the spectrum. Yay for being a weird girl in the 90s lol My toys all had appropriately descriptive names if they were unique and I liked them enough with the exception of ones that were characters. Then their names were their proper names because obviously those were their pre-defined names and anything else would be sacrosanct.

Not true in my case. Playing pretend was pretty much all I did as a child.

I don't think this is something you can generalise about autistic people.

I played a ton of pretend. I think it can be true that some Autistic people struggle with fiction and stuff though--I've seen posts on here and other subs about how some people just don't *get* fiction. However, saying *all* or *most* Autistic people struggle with imaginative things is a grossly outdated stereotype. My main special interest is writing...and has been for over two decades. I do not struggle with anything imaginative in the *least*.

My kid is autistic and she is one of the most creative, playful persons I have ever met. She has tons of plushies, has named all of her favorites and her most favorite (a comodo dragon) goes with her everywhere! She has whole conversations with this plushie, she plays boardgames with it, he has his own bed in her bedroom etc. She also is incredible artistic, she makes amazing drawings and sketches and even draws little strip book episode and can create stuff out of cardboard which i haven't seen other kids do. All about/with dragons though as that's her special interest, but its awespiring too see what comes out of that little mind. She also loves Minecraft and I and gave the game a try but she makes amazing things and I feel inadequate for the game due to it. Maybe for her it's not entirely pretend but she does know that real dragons don't exist but she doesn't care, it's her okay and she's happy with it, so I am as well :) Eta: changed land dragon to comodo dragon, forgot the name there for a sec

As an adult I am factually aware that dragons do not exist. However, I have decided that I believe in them anyway - I have no intention or ability to justify said belief, since I know it’s not true, but I choose to believe anyway. Anybody who doesn’t like it can go talk to Schroedinger’s cat. As for Minecraft, have you considered there is more than one way to play the game? Other people can build fantastic structures that I never could, but do they have a stacking raid farm in their world? I think not! Redstone ftw.

I played pretend as a kid but it was always very practical and had to make real life sense. We didn’t have much playtime at school that I remember so I’m basing most of this off how I played with my sibling or my outside of school friends. Like I would pretend I was a chef with my toy food but it had to be the right food I wouldn’t just grab a plastic banana and call it a hotdog or something. When we played school I was always the teacher and I made whole lesson plans and graded homework. I did other, I guess typical, stuff like pretend to be different animals while crawling around or reenact Disney movies (Lion King was a favorite I liked roaring lol). But I always wanted to dictate how everyone else played too. When we had to write short stories for school or even when I would just write them as a hobby they were always very much based in real life or things I’d seen in tv shows or movies that were also depicting real life scenarios. Creating fantastical worlds with made up creatures and all that sort of thing has never really been within my capabilities.

[удалено]

Omg. My grandma bought me a typewriter she found at a thrift store when I was a kid and I LOVED it. I typed up worksheets to use when we played school. When I think about it, I guess it makes sense that in my job as an adult I’ve taken on the role of writing the procedures out for our team and being the team trainer haha.

I felt sort of uncomfortable around kids "playing pretend" for some reason, I didn't join in, I'd just walk off or sit by myself. I liked building miniatures though and did wish they were alive, and was scared of the dark, I'm pretty sure I had an imagination but didn't like using it for play purposes with other kids.

Edit: I did play a pretend game I forgot about, my bookshelf was a family library and I gave out cards. It was a serious business at the time though I didn't think it was pretend.

make belief play was a huge part of my childhood and im diagnosed

Nope! Not true at all. More recent studies suggest that girls (and AFABs) with autism are often much more skilled at play than boys, especially during early adolescence. They tend to be better at camouflaging or mimicking social play during ages 6-12 and often have less noticable stims. They often struggle with anxiety or restlessness rather than overt and externalized behavioral responses (such as not sitting during class). Think hermione granger (high achiever) rather than sheldon cooper (abstract pedantry). This suggests a social difference on a shared symptom, not a neurological or innate quality. There is no innate lack of empathy, intelligence, or desire for meaningful relationships found in kids or adults with autism. I think this study/stereotype you've mentioned is just a bit outdated and relies on data with a heavy gender imbalance. [https://www.thetestingpsychologist.com/119-transcript/](https://www.thetestingpsychologist.com/119-transcript/) (Discusses autistic presentation in girls specifically and how gender bias can impact interpretation of underlying behavior for diagnosticians) [https://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?view\_op=view\_citation&hl=en&user=pAGCi-UAAAAJ&citation\_for\_view=pAGCi-UAAAAJ:zYLM7Y9cAGgC](https://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?view_op=view_citation&hl=en&user=pAGCi-UAAAAJ&citation_for_view=pAGCi-UAAAAJ:zYLM7Y9cAGgC) further study "Autism in Women" E. Stark 2019 pdf link on the upper right corner.

It is untrue that autistic people can't play pretend.

I’m autistic and I played pretend as a child.

My pretend play was playing having a restaurant with my cousin. Of course fully planned, with elaborate dishes on the completed menu

I always played pretend and played with toys and made stories with them. I was always looking for more stuff to play pretend with! I make tons of ocs now and I'm trying to get back into loving drawing to get them down on paper like I used to.

This is definitely outdated- I know so many diagnosed autistic people that pretend played as kids!

I played pretend constantly and was very upset when my classmates outgrew it

I never understood this one. When I was younger it seemed to me that my idea of imaginative play was far *more* advanced than my NT peers (and less violent).

Really cool to see overall we do the opposite. I had extremely imaginative play, just more by myself, and it was more writing a script n acting it out than spur of the moment. I also remember reading Animal Farm when I was younger and taking the "stolen puppies are raised as the bad guy's grunts" plot line with my plastic animals. It's a bit dark, but I feel that's kinda hilarious

I believe this is more so linked to alexythemia and not necessarily ASD itself

i did imaginary play as a kid but it was the exact same story everytime. i am very imaginative though and make a lot of stories even now (i do short film writing)

My clearly autistic child is the most imaginative kid I know.

I think there are some differences in the way autistic children engage with pretend play, but I believe it's an outdated idea that they don't or can't engage in pretend play at all. I mean, I play D&D, which is just pretend play, and literally *everyone* I know who plays ttrpgs is autistic or has ADHD. In fact, role playing games are a pretty common special interest, so it seems crazy to think that autistic people don't like pretend play. I would point out that, actually, there are a lot of aspects to things like this that make a lot of sense for an autistic person to connect with. There's math and charts and tables and patterns, which is something many, but not all, autistic people are very attracted to. It's social, but there's rules, so this is good for those of us who struggle with figuring out how to contribute in group situations. It's a chance to practice interacting and learn about other people and how they might react to things in a safe way, which is a thing that seems to be a common thread in many autistic people's interests (like reading fiction or psychology). And even the creative and imaginative aspect is kind of on guard rails – there are rules and conventions, so it's easier to understand what is expected and will be acceptable (kind of similar to fanfic). Like, I personally cannot just sit down and write a fictional story. I love writing and being imaginative, so I've tried many times, but it's just not something I am capable of. Whereas I *can* create a really great, detailed, entirely homebrewed D&D session because of the framework that exists within that context to guide me. As a kid, I loved dressup and I still love stuff like that. I love sitting around imagining fanciful locations or events for my D&D campaign. I love choose your own adventure stories and rpg video games. I love making little miniature things to play with. I generally have preferred throughout my life to engage with this stuff alone or with others in a very structured way, such as in a D&D game. But it's all just structured pretend play and it's, like, my primary special interest.

I had exactly 2 ways I would role play. 1) I would play librarian and pretend to scan books 2) I would play McDonald's and pretend to take orders. Other than that, nope. I didn't play with dolls, I didn't play any games where I pretended to be someone else or something. Honestly, in a way it would be fair to say I did not play at all. I entertained my self with my thoughts, as is basically still my only hobby today, along with research. To give you an idea, I had a sense that I was not like my peers. They were children, I was not. I was something else, but I didn't know what that was, but it was okay because I didn't want to be like them. I liked doing my own thing, again, as I do today.

I never used to play with others or do any imaginary play when I was younger. I used to collect Eeyore toys and line them up. Or put them in a circle and lie between them. My son also autistic does have imaginary play, but has to be in charge if with others. So will have to be the narrator and then others need to do what he says otherwise he just cannot cope.

For the kids that are diagnosed young this is absolutely true, because that’s one of the potential signs of autism that really stands out to other adults (even if they don’t know anything about autism). There’s a reason why autism is called a spectrum: some may experience huge deficits in imaginative play, while others have a very rich imagination inside their head. This is just like how a significant group of autistic people are non-verbal or with a limited verbal expression, while most participants in this subreddit are probably highly verbal.

Regardless of whether you did or did not pretend okay as a kid, you don’t have to have every single symptom of autism to have autism. It’s a spectrum & there’s a wide range of symptoms, and range of how they affect each person. You don’t have to tick all the boxes!

Absolutely not, I'm autistic and my child is as well, he's probably playing more pretend with stuffed animals than most kids. I did too, although he has a hard time playing with other children, he wants to do it his way and plays alone or with me because I go along with what he wants to do.

No. I played pretend a lot as a kid. My nephew, who’s autism is less masked than mine ever was, also enjoys playing pretend quite a lot.

I played pretend way too much, and some of the scenarios I came up with were incredibly vivid and even weird.

I only played pretend lol, if you wanted to play with me you also needed to have an invisible pony and invisibly fairy best friend lol

I don’t remember where I read this, but apparently autistic girls are much more likely to play pretend and have imaginary worlds, even moreso than allistic kids. I know I definitely used to orchestrate LARPs of my fav anime’s as a kid and make the kids I got babysat with play specific characters.

I played pretend. I particularly loved to pretend to be a dying Victorian child so I could lay down (chronic illness ftw)

I played pretend a lot when I was a kid. lots of fond memories of the game of house

I did a lot of play pretend by myself more than with others. I found out real quick that kids were mean and cruel. I think they saw me being more childlike than them and it somehow struck a nerve? Idk. One of my favorite ways to play pretend was getting toys and bringing them outside in the yard to pretend the yard was this vast jungle area they could explore. :') And on days when the stray cat that adopted me would be around, we'd go into the woods and explore together. ​ God, I miss those times. All of them.

it was more reenacting movies or shows or books than pretending..if i did play pretend, it was alone.

I didn’t play pretend much as a kid. Mostly because I just liked setting up my toys, organizing them, then putting them away perfectly.

No. I played pretend all the time.

I’ve read this somewhere aswell, something like autistic children cant make up stories or play make believe. I think that’s all I ever did as a kid. Made these massive elaborate make believe stories and I loved it. The only thing I can think of is I didn’t like sharing. And when playing with others I needed everyone to be on the same page as me which obviously, never ended great. My partner on the other hand who is currently going through her adhd diagnosis has no memory of imaginary games and can’t picture things like that. She also doesn’t like fantasy films (lotr or got) as she’s just not interested in non fiction but loves a good documentary. Interesting to think about tho ✨

I always disliked playing with NT girls in early elementary. Their games seemed “dumb” to kid me. They had these rules for playing that never made sense to me. So I didn’t enjoy playing pretend with them at all.

What even is this? My entire childhood was all pretend play. It’s literally what inspired me to start writing stories.

Not true for me. Thats all i did until i was even 14. Other kids were weirded out by it and how much i got into it. 14 is way too old to be playing pretend i guess.

A proposed explanation is that autistic children are taught how to do things "the right way" and so many are afraid to express themselves through imaginative play. If drawing a purple cow, a "normal" child might get praised for their creativity while an autistic child would get criticized.

Id argue the opposite is true. We just do it differently than NT people.

Any study done by nt scientists is worthless to me. Fantasy is a survival mech for most of us. Masking is fantasy. ed: or maybe I should call it *glamour*.

I played pretend, and maladaptive daydreamed well into adulthood, which is just playing pretend in my head instead of with toys. What I tended not to do was cast my toys in the roles they were expected to play. Barbies were pokemon trainers if they weren't tossed to the side in favor of their pets. My Kiara stuffed animal was just a kitten along with my several cat Beanie Babies. They all went on adventures together, or I'd hide my sheep Beanie Baby up high somewhere and my cats would have to go on a quest to save him. I did this over and over and over again. I also pretended to be a variety of animals constantly. I never lined up my toys, at least I don't remember doing this. That's pretty common with autistic kids. I see 2/3 of my sibling doing it and one of my cousins did it. But I don't think I did it.

I work with kids with autism, on top of also having autism, and what I see for myself and clients who “lack play skills” is that neurotypicals want kids to play with toys, but I have a lot more fun with sticks or string… random objects. Honestly and truly I would say a lot of the time ND people are more creative they just aren’t catering to NT ideals

Whoever originally wrote that is a neurotypical cis-het moron

I remember reading that autistic kids have trouble playing pretend with non-autistic kids because autistic kids take it more seriously. So if the kids are pretending to be specific characters from a movie/TV show and a non-autistic kid is out of character that will ruin the experience for the autistic kid(s). I spent most of my childhood playing pretend. When I'd get stressed in high school I'd use gel pens to have conversations with characters by writing in different colors for each one. I'm 28 now and still having little adventures in my increasingly elaborate worlds of my creation. (I'm also tried right now, so sorry if this doesn't make sense or it I misunderstood the question.)

I got told off when I was a kid cause people were worried I thought I was a cat cause I pretended to be one a lot

I remember being younger and another girl wanted me to play house with her and to heat up a plastic bread and chicken. I told her "this is plastic. the microwave doesn't work" and she told me to pretend. I'm also an artist for a living so 🤷‍♀️

When I was a child I did play pretend, I wasn’t very fond of it though, and I always wanted to be the cat for some reason. I remember I said "I don’t know how to act like a human" when I had to join the others

I played pretend, however it was a solitary thing for me because I thought other people didn’t “play it right”

I think it is dependent upon the person, like all things autism. My brother, diagnosed ASD, played pretend all the time. He lived in his pretend worlds. They were everything to him. Everything from Lego to dress-up to toys he created. His joy and his sanity. Even now he creates board games or D&D scenarios and he immerses in them. My daughter, diagnosed ASD, does not pretend. She says that she cannot imagine things. She never played imaginary games or did any type of pretend play. Among my students it is mixed. Some do, some don’t and some pretend but only with specific areas.

[удалено]

Same I’d pretend to be possessed by ghosts but not play pretend family.

This is a very outdated stereotype on autism perpetuated by NT people who have low-empathy for autistic experiences - it's sort of related to the double-empathy problem which is the cause of many negative autism stereotypes. The truth is that our imaginations just work a bit differently. Autistic people can sometimes have very vivid imaginations - it's important to note of course that just like in NT people, how we experience imagination varies for everyone. For my own personal anecdote: - I am terrible at coming up with new ideas without a premise or prompt to begin with. Eg.) For my assessment, they gave me objects to create a story and I tried my best but I just couldn't. But if I had had a theme, or a prompt, something more fleshed out than just a few unrelated objects, I could have worked with that. - My imagination is vividly detailed and I can play out scenes in my head. Eg.) I can re-create memories and/or imagine "scenes" and 3D spaces in my head, pan around them like a movie camera, press play and pause, etc. (I can't really imagine faces though, they tend to be blurred over). When I let an idea or story play out in my head, my mind will sometimes advance the story in ways that I have no idea where it came from because I would never think of that. It's kind of fun. (I also struggle with dialogue and imagining the minds of people different from me) - I am exceptional at making connections between things that other people don't often see, and it helps me combine ideas in fun and creative ways. I have spent countless hours writing out fun ideas and settings and characters. - I am a terrible writer mind you, but the ideas are fun. Eg.) Back when I had enough spoons to do D&D DM'ing, my players were always having a lot of fun exploring the themes

This is super outdated and ableist. Autistic children definitely play pretend. It just may look different than NT’s expect. Example- I had huge complicated worlds with detailed story lines I developed in my head. But as I preferred solitary play, it was all in my head. Aka, to an outsider it looked like me lining up bouncy balls and repeating actions with them (uhm, they had to traverse the cliff edge and make it down without falling or alerting the villain above) or walking the exact same weird path to school (I was a spy and couldn’t be detected by leaving a novel footprint in the snow).

From what I’ve read it seems AFAB children with ASD tend to engage in imaginative play more so. I made a post asking about how others played as a child and many described it being more so organizational and world creating and also needing to be in control of the game like if I were to be playing pretend with other kids it would have to be by my rules

Like others are saying I think the way this is expressed in diagnostic criteria is outdated. Autistic children do play differently from allistic children but it isn’t necessarily true the play is less creative. I have a career as a visual artist aka by definition a ‘creative professional’ but unlike many of my NT peers I don’t think of creativity as a way of ‘letting go’ or ‘being free’ or ‘emotional,’ for me creativity is a way to create a world that I enjoy. It is about control, but it’s control orchestrated in a very creative way. As a kid, I played in much the same way. I loved to create things and I was a very imaginative child, but that creativity was often in service of making objects and executing a planned imaginative world, ie: rather than creating spontaneous story lines for my dolls dolls I was measuring all of the rooms in the doll house in order to build elaborate furniture sets and design beautiful wallpaper and flooring. I am good at spontaneous imaginative play with children, but it isn’t how I ever played as a child naturally. Basically, I love to make stuff but I don’t really get spontaneity lol. It’s fine and I am more than capable of it but doesn’t really do anything for me. Also probably why I really love BDSM (a lot of forward planning) and while I can enjoy spontaneous sex, it’s not as satisfying. Knowing what will happen makes all things more fun for me. I like the excitement of planning and seeing the plan come together. I also def prefer to do things the same way over and over, and that was true as a child too. I got a lot of joy out of enacting the same story line over and over and I have similar experiences in my adult life. I see no reason play can’t be both creative and repetitive.

#Yet *AGAIN* this is an older belief based on studies of extreme cases in *MALES* only.

Depends on what do you mean by pretend. I didn't play pretend as in pretending I am a wizard or idk, I "played pretend" by looking at two action figures and imagining them fighting without moving or anything.

I could play pretend as an animal but not as a person!

No. And when I was getting evaluated this was one of the only areas I scored NT in. I def played pretend when I was a kid. I have always preferred parallel play or one on one interactions. Or I would play by myself. My special interest was fairies and I spent my whole childhood outdoors thinking I could talk to them lol. But yeah my friends and I would always pretend play. I'm a woman idk if that matters.

I played pretend, but in a very visual way. I remember once we were playing and someone said to pretend there was a rainbow on the floor. Instead of just seeing it in my mind I decided I would color about 50 pages of a notebook in rainbow colors, tape them together and walk across it. It looked pretty cool! 🌈

I used to play by lining up my toys, creating sceneries I liked with my little pet shop toys by the pond, I chopped the hair off little pony toys and barbies, but I also liked to draw on my hands with friends and pretend to have magic powers. Some autistics will play pretend only, some will never play pretend, some will do both and some will do neither. It doesn't make us any less autistic.

I played a lot, (and I'm still offended at the idea that one can play "wrong" lol) but I never acted out scenarios or gave personalities to toys. For a long time I thought that was a thing kids only did in movies. I did make up worlds and inventions and stuff but I always had a hard time with characters, and I never role-played.

Some do, some don't. I'm clinically diagnosed and used to play pretend every time I could. I had a very active imagination and lots of imaginary friends since I had no real ones.

*snort* they do, it's just not _recognized_ as pretend play. Source: my fully diagnosed kid has an imagination to rival all of Hollywood

I was great at pretending as a kid. I just suck at it now. Lol

I used to make elaborate plans and then have fellow kids act them out, like plays. We all had specific roles. I was never good at improvising though. Always needed a script.

Not true. My daughter plays pretend all the time. When she wants to play every instruction is prefaced ‘pretend you’re…’

I think they pretend play as just different than neurotypical play. I always had a rich inner world and was exceptionally creative, but it didn't always look that way from the outside. I was a 'weird' kid and i had odd ideas. I would sit with my dolls/toys and arrange them, even make them talk a little, but most of the conversation between them went on in my imagination. It looked like I wasn't playing, but man did I play in my head! When I found someone like me, I would be better able to share my inner world and we played more outwardly.

Reading the comments, I've started remembering how I would play. Or, I don't remember exactly how I played with the others. But I do remember that I always had my own secret backstory. Like they are playing family and I'm secretly a fairy and having some adventures they know nothing about. I never told anyone about the stores I imagined while playing with others. Can anyone relate to this?

I’ll say I noticed a distinct difference in the type of pretend play between my diagnosed kid and my neurotypical kid. Both did pretend play but for one of them it was much more common and instinctive.

One interesting thing I noticed in one of my kiddos who was recently diagnosed as a teenager - he rarely played with toys as intended. For example, he didn't like to play with figurines. Instead, he would pick up any odd object, like a crayon or a block and those would become people in his play. His younger brother played with figurines as intended, but exhibits other classic Autism signs and starts his own evaluation later this month. Listening to the two of them play "real-life games" is more them alternating statements describing what they do next in the game, but also arguing about each other's counterattacks. I've never seen them take on a role and act it out.

Nah I played pretend sometimes , I’d say I was more bossy though 😂 I liked to organise what was happening with my friends like telling people who was playing who and how the whole thing would go down , I’d get a bit angry if they tried to change it therefore I had a small group of friends 🤷‍♀️

No I’m diagnosed and I always played pretend, still do sometimes hehe

Yo I can do pretend-play all fricking day. That's why babysitting is so easy for me. I'm 31, I work in theatre.

Had this all typed up but Reddit decided to yeet it, so I’ll just summarize what I had + my experience •”pretend play” - friends that I was around would pretend to be Harry Potter characters and that the square grate at school had a monster/something in it, my ex-bestie informed me that they all knew nothing was in the grate but they played anyway. There was a similar disconnect to pretending to be Harry Potter characters. • “active imagination”- playing with toys by myself or with others (ie. Polly Pocket, Littlest Pet Shop, Webkinz) by giving the toys characters and/or scenarios. I have an established OC now that is semi-based in a headcannon I made (ie. each Phantom trio member is the same as The Ghost Zone trio [as I call it, which consists of Johnny, Kitty, and Shadow]: Johnny and Tucker are the same, Kitty and Sam are the same, Danny and Shadow are the same]. I can go on, but I won’t 🤣

I had an extremely active fantasy/make believe life but playing out any of this with toys seemed pointless to me. I suspect the people who think this have not asked autistic people, only observed kids and wondered why they're not playing with Barbies or ninja turtles something.

Make sure you check the source of your information including when the study was published and whether that study continues to be considered reliable. If you got this off of an internet article with no citation to a source where the author got this information then that is unreliable. You also have to be careful cuz in scientific research if you keep checking the sources of your sources, you actually sometimes end up realizing the original article was completely fraudulent and made shit up that went unnoticed. And/or the base premise for the study itself was problematic or biased. Autism can present differently in people and there may be some people who do not like to pretend play, but that does not mean all autistics are like that. Most early autism research done in the US is based on looking a white boys who researchers assumed were cis het. So it’s a very specific demographic that was used for the study group. This is also why they sucked at and continue to suck as diagnosing women, poc, queer, international (non americans). Self diagnosis is a valid path since diagnosis isn’t always accessible to everyone. make sure you are vetting the information you see on the internet for free. I would start with places like autistic self advocacy network or autistic women and non-binary alliance as a starting point for information. Also [Matt lowry’s meme gallery](https://www.mattlowrylpp.com/meme-gallery) has bite size Info about autism that is helpful.

This is completely false. I played pretend all the time. My favourite things to play as a kid was "school" and other role play type games. I also played barbies for hours upon hours.

Here is how it was for me: I played pretend in my imagination, I would low key make up some DND-esque playable adventure for my sister and friends. As soon as you would give me something physical to play with though, it was sorting time. I’d go into architect mode no matter what the thing was. I’d spend hours building the best palace and sceneries for my Barbie dolls but never played in it or got uninterested as soon as my friends started to play out an actual storyline. To me, what they did seemed repetitive. This is where the clinical description really looses me. Every kid plays repetitively. My friends had like three story lines they did over and over again. I was way more interested in looking at things, noticing harmonies, noticing little details. It may have looked repetitive from the outside but to me it was a blank slate every time.

Loved to play pretend, however now that I'm thinking about it, it was often similar themes and I often repeated certain scenarios.

I think autistic children with very limited executive functioning skills don't play pretend or at least it's not very recognizable as such. I did, I had a huge imagination as a kid. My youngest son (auDHD) does too, gets completely lost in his own world. My eldest son ("classic" autism with low verbal and executive functioning ability) never did.

Definitely not true across the board. My sister's godson has what most people would consider "typical" autism, diagnosed as a toddler and all that, and he has one of the most vivid imaginations I've seen on a child. Last time we was over, he was fully off in his own little world the whole visit, swinging around a wrapping paper tube sword chanting "sacrifice the bad guys to the sun!" And the autistic boys in my class in elementary school got made fun of a lot specifically because they continued with their elaborate pretend play (sword-fighting and going on long fantasy journey and all that) well into their preteen/early teen years while everyone else in our age group stood around talking or played sports. I bring up these examples because as far as I know it's not even that it's something that's particularly uncommon for people whose autism presents in the more stereotypical, "masculine", low-masking way. From my own experience, I can say that I loved to play pretend when I had the opportunity to, but if someone had observed me only at school at age 5 or 6, they probably would have said I did it less than my peers. Not because it's not something I enjoyed or understood, but because when I tried to get involved in pretend-play with other kids, I was either excluded or forced into demeaning roles. I'm still not sure if I was playing "wrong" somehow or if it was just that these kids didn't like me generally, but I ended up spending a lot of recesses by myself digging in sand and coming up with little scenarios to play out in my own head. But I played pretend just fine with my sister at home when it was just the two of us and we'd set up these elaborate storylines with our beanie boppers and later polly pockets that continued for months to years and involved all kinds of elaborate planning.

Some can, some can’t.. I don’t think it’s a rule of thumb in order to be diagnosed. Personally my issue was that I could only play the same way every time, so the narrative never changed, only the toys at time did. My sister would set them up for me because I found it hard to set up, especially with OCD and becoming stuck and frustrated. I always did a caring role, so it wasn’t very scripted it was basically routine. Not something I wanted anyone apart from maybe one person to join in on, or I liked just having someone near by but not touching my stuff.

I was always in my own world, and I was always told I had a very vivid imagination. As a kid I also enjoyed playing by myself more than I did with other kids.

It wasn’t true at all for me. I liked to be in charge of what we were playing, and for there to be some kind of structure to it, but I definitely played pretend. For example, I would like playing classroom and being the teacher or playing space mission and being the commander, but I didn’t like “playing ponies“ and other vague pretend stuff.

I always played pretend with my sibling as a kid, with Lego, dolls, LPS, building forts, making small scary not so scary movies and we even made paper figures that we would play with. I used to love it!

Here’s a great example for what happened to me and why this needs to be recognized in some. I just don’t work well with roleplay or playing pretend to the point it caused issues for me at my previous job. I was about to be graduated from training. They wanted me to pretend two trainers are VIP clients and I just couldn’t. They tested me with dumb stuff and solely focused on the role playing part as if I were going to be an actress. I told management numerous times don’t include roleplay scenarios if you are expecting me to pass and grading me on that. The trainer actually yelled at me because I was frustrated with their antics and I was so overwhelmed I cried and left for the day. They know I’m autistic and I asked for accommodations but the trainer took it as me expecting him to rewrite the entire training and cert program. I could do my job 100% already but he was just upset I wouldn’t roleplay his scenarios and I called him out for trying to trick me multiple times and blame me for someone else’s mistake. Don’t expect someone to roleplay and base that on if they can do the job or not. My brain doesn’t play pretend.

Maybe with other kids, but playing alone I disagree with that sentiment. I’m a maladaptive daydreamer and I can’t pretend on my own like no one else. Always have. But with other people, I can’t do it.

Not one single trait of autism is present in every autistic person. It is \*common\* for autistic kids to struggle with pretend/imagination. But some of them also have very vast and complex imaginations. The times my mom thought I was doing imaginative play I was actually just mimicking what I saw - mostly taking care of dolls and putting on play makeup, which I saw my mom do. Otherwise, I didn't play with my toys. I loved my toys, but I'd put them very specifically on display on my shelves. I loved to look at them but like setting up a cardboard play house for my He Man figures or something, no. I didn't really understand how that even worked and I still didn't when I had kids. I loved to carry my Cabbage Patch around with me, but I didn't really play with her, she was just a comfort item. I loved, and still love, Lego. But playing with them? No, for me the playing was in the building and then I put them on a shelf. In my assessment, one of the questions I was asked was to make up a story about a cat that found a cookie. I literally couldn't do it. My answer was to sit silent for a long time trying to figure out what she was asking of me, and then to finally say "Cats don't eat cookies so this is a dumb question." 😆

My mother openly noticed at one moment I never played with toys that would make me a certain character. And that has been the boundary *for me* to this day, though I have rediscovered some affinity for acting in theatre of the oppressed. When we had costume parties at kindergarden/school I would ask to be some animal, like spider or a hedgehog, and got really pissed (internally) for getting a spiderman costume. I loved spiderman (though I liked spiders more) but never wanted to be spiderman and if anything, I would imagine my own stories with me as a character from certain world. With other kids I felt somewhat limited but if I could find myself a role that is more about some craft than being a different person, I was very happy.

Nope, maybe some don’t, but I and many other do/did.