Graduation Date
Spring 2026
Document Type
Project
Program
Master of Arts degree with a major in Psychology, option Academic Research
Committee Chair Name
Christopher Walmsley
Committee Chair Affiliation
Cal Poly Humboldt Faculty or Staff
Second Committee Member Name
Kelly Nord
Second Committee Member Affiliation
Community Member or Outside Professional
Keywords
Pretend play, Theory of Mind, Social skills, Autism, ASD, System of least prompts, ToM
Subject Categories
Psychology
Abstract
Autistic individuals often struggle with basic social skills due to deficits in Theory of Mind (ToM), perspective taking, reciprocity difficulties, etc. Early interventions that target these skills, specifically metarepresentation skills, could be essential to an individual’s social success and overall well-being. Further, pretend play shares an important relationship with ToM and social skills, due to their shared use of putting oneself in others’ shoes. Thus, a pretend play intervention could be beneficial in not only improving children’s overall play interactions, but also through a domino effect on their ToM and social skills. The directionality of the relationship between pretend play, ToM, and social skills remains up for debate. This uncertainty, along with the important contributions sufficient social skills can have on autistic individuals, is the motivation for the current study. Additionally, an intervention that could be implemented with ease and limited materials was a focus, in hopes of inspiring future researchers/practitioners in the process of pretend play treatment development. The current study aimed to increase autistic individuals’ Theory of Mind and social skills through targeting pretend play using the System of Least Prompts. Results showed an increase in pretend play frequency and complexity in all participants and mixed findings in ToM and social skills, following intervention.
Citation Style
APA
Recommended Citation
Lok, Joelle, "Pretend play effects on autistic children's Theory of Mind & social skills" (2026). Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects. 2578.
https://digitalcommons.humboldt.edu/etd/2578
https://1drv.ms/w/c/cce46628a03b3fe6/IQBsjLjhf5zsRrzw_4dsvJoZAd9GzuL3Co80b0LMJram7WQ