Arranging play activities with missing items to increase object-substitution symbolic play in children with autism spectrum disorder.

Arranging play activities with missing items increased opportunities for children to engage in symbolic play. The training procedure can be used in clinical and educational settings as an initial step to establish and improve complex play behavior in children with autism spectrum disorder who lack such skills.IMPLICATIONS FOR REHABILITATIONMany children with autism spectrum disorder have inappropriate play behaviors and do not demonstrate symbolic play.Arranging play activities with missing items and systematic assistive prompts effectively increased object-substitution symbolic play.Generalization of symbolic play to untrained play activities occurred after the intervention.