Teaching Pretend Play to Children With Disabilities: A Review of the Literature

The purpose of this study was to analyze literature regarding interventions for promoting pretend play in children with disabilities. Sixteen studies were found using experimental designs to evaluate pretend play interventions with children with disabilities. The results were analyzed across the targeted pretense behaviors, participants, materials, settings, interventions, levels of prompting, and rigor of the studies. Interventions were moderately effective, although methodological limitations affected experimental rigor, the types of conclusions that could be drawn, and evidence for practice. Implications for future research emerged and are described.