Understanding playtime behaviours of autistic children in mainstream primary school

Abstract

Autistic children experience differences in their social interactions and behaviours, many of whom attend mainstream schools. With a clearer understanding of the playtime behaviours of autistic children, more personalised support can be offered to ensure they receive the same opportunities as their peers. This thesis includes a systematic review and meta-analysis that explores the playtime behaviours and experiences of autistic children and an empirical mixed-methods study investigating gender differences in playtime behaviours in autistic children, both within mainstream primary schools. The systematic review included 20 studies that were narratively synthesised, suggesting that autistic children spend more time alone than their peers at playtime. Moreover, autistic children want to have friends but experience feelings of isolation and difficulties with the implicit rules of the playground and have personal coping strategies to support themselves. Six of the twenty studies were also included in three random-effects meta-analyses which complemented the narrative synthesis suggesting that autistic children did spend more time in solitary and less time in joint engagement than non-autistic children. There was no difference in the amount of time autistic children spent between solitary and joint engagement. This review suggests that more research is needed to understand variations of playtime behaviour within the autistic community. An empirical study was conducted where autistic children were asked to complete an adapted version of Drawing the Ideal Self, the Ideal Playtime, to understand their views about playtime. Additionally, the researcher used The Playground Observation of Peer Engagement (POPE) to measure the proportion of time spent engaged in different types of playtime behaviour. A comparison of gender playtime behaviours and pupil views was conducted to identify gender differences in playtime behaviours. The qualitative results were analysed using reflexive thematic analysis. The findings suggest that these autistic participants wanted agency over what they played with, plenty of resources, specific conditions to play and others around them. The autistic boys wanted enough peers to play a game, whereas autistic girls wanted a small group of classmates to play with. The quantitative findings suggest that autistic girls spent the most time in solitary play or small groups, whereas autistic boys spent time playing games or alone, illustrating both similarities and differences between autistic boys and autistic girls. More research is needed to understand pupils’ playtime experiences and the differences in views, specifically at primary age.

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Identifiers

ORCID for Becky Ward: orcid.org/0000-0001-7703-8670

ORCID for Judith Bruce-Golding: orcid.org/0000-0002-4865-7373

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