A Review of the Researches into Autistic Children's Ability in Pretend Play

Since the 1980s,fruitful researches have been conducted at home and abroad in autistic children's pretend play.This article,through an analysis of the latest research results,draws the following conclusion: the deficiency in autistic children's ability in pretend play is one of their distinctive disorders;the deficits of mental representation or meta-representation and the deficits of executive functions may to some extent explain the cause for autistic children's difficulty in pretend play.Also,the article discusses measures on the assessment and intervention of autistic children's pretend play.