Building Social Communication Skills in Primary School Through Play

The importance of play as a medium for learning has long been established within the educational and psychology fields.

Play therapy is a group of therapies in which play is utilised as a communication medium for children to access therapy.

Variations of structured play therapies claim to target multiple populations and domains of need, one of which is improving social communication skills.

The systematic literature review explored the benefits of play based therapy on early years and primary school age children with Autism Spectrum Conditions (ASC), with regards to their social communication and emotional development.

10 studies were identified to meet the requirements of the review and critically examined. The studies were systematically assessed on quality and relevance to the review question.

Overall, all 10 studies were rated between low and medium, with concerns for the disparity of the reported findings.

Conclusions included the need for further evidence to definitively demonstrate the effectiveness of play therapies on this population.

The empirical study explored the impact of LEGO® based therapy in improving the social communication skills in typically developing primary school aged children, and if the benefits could be generalised to home and school settings.

This naturalistic and peer-based intervention has been established with children with an ASC diagnosis.

The efficacy on typically developing children is yet to be explored.

This single case experimental design study, explored the effects of a six-week school delivered LEGO® based therapy intervention on 10 typically developing primary school age children.

Measures were taken through the use of free-play coded video sessions and standardised parent and teacher questionnaires.

After visual and statistical analysis, the study concluded that the intervention significantly increased social communication skills in the participants, with the benefits maintained post intervention.

Generalisation of these benefits was observed in school environments.

Observed home benefits of the intervention proved inconclusive.