The Relation between Functional Play and Other Forms of Cooperation and Word Learning in ASD

Abstract

of activity resulting from repetitive muscle movements with or without objects, for the shake of practicing sensorimotor schemes [4]. According to Piaget [1], functional play is the first of three successive stages preceding constructive and dramatic play. An adequate definition of this form of play was provided by Ungerer & Sigman [5]: "The appropriate use of an object or the conventional association of two or more objects, such as using a spoon to feed a doll or placing a teacup on a saucer". In this vein, it is suggested that functional play emerges from some form of representation [6], although there is no unanimity about the nature of this representation as well as its relation to symbolic function. Some authors propose a dissociation between functional play and symbolism explaining that unlike functional play, which requires a first order representation e.g. of a pen as a rocket, symbol requires a more complex representational system i.e. a secondorder representation about this representation (a metarepresentation), namely, that the representation is not true [7-9]. Nevertheless, a considerable amount of research does not support the view of dissociation; rather, evidence is provided that at least in typically developing children functional play not only is related to symbolic play and language, but it also facilitates these skills. Focusing on the relationship between functional play and language, Sigman and Ungerer [10] examined preterm and full-term infants in experimental conditions and found that functional play directed towards dolls and other persons as well as meaningfully related sequences of functional acts at 13½ months were associated with