Efficacy of brief quantitative measures of play for screening for autism spectrum disorders

Quick and effective screening measures are needed for detecting Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Thirty typically developing children and 30 children with ASD aged 24-68 months were used. This study explored if the ASD group would exhibit less object exploration, diversity of play, and turn-taking than the typically developing group. Older children with ASD performed less turn-taking. On all other measures, IQ accounted for more of the difference between groups than diagnosis. Implications of these results for future research are discussed.