"Varied, spontaneous make-believe play"

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Me too. I wonder the same thing. I was a VERY creative child and always making up stories and having pretend play. But now that I think back on it I think a lot of that play was influenced by TV shows, movies or books that I had indulged in. So maybe it wasn't that creative?

When I was 10 I read a book about child workers during The Industrial Revolution. I was fascinated! I took my Barbie doll and cut all her hair off, bit her legs and colored the bite marks in with red marker. Then I had a play wherein she'd gotten mangled in one of the factory machines. LOL. I was kind of a messed-up child.

I suspect that ALL children play is like that.

So what is the difference between that kind of a play and an autistic child's play?

Yeah, I couldn't believe that, either. I've showed autistic symptoms throughout my life. But I know a girl who showed such signs throughout her childhood but does not show them anymore. Maybe the signs aren't as visible with some girls throughout their childhood because of the gender expectations embedded in our culture (i.e. girls are to be quiet and obedient). There are a lot of girls who get diagnosed later as opposed to boys, for a reason I can only speculate about.

I have a 7 year old grandson who basically lives in make believe land. It's hard to get him to be himself. Most of his days are spent like acting out different movies he has seen. We are getting worried about his behavior on with it. Trying to find some info on something like it.

That's awesome!

I was very imaginative as a child. When I was around 3 or 4, I pretended to be Beetlejuice, and I made my mom be Lydia. I used to pretend to be Mario too, and my mom was Luigi and one of my sisters was Princess Peach. When I was 5 I started pretending that Balto, from the animated movie of the same name, was my imaginary dog that followed me to school and played with me at recess. When I got into the Pokemon craze, I pretended that all of the Pokemon I caught in the game had personalities and could talk like humans, and I made up stories about them.

I also loved playing with plushies. My brother and I made up what was basically an elaborate sitcom involving all of them.

I used to love to play pretend. It was my favorite game to play.

I remember playing "power rangers" on the schoolyard. This was during the early days of the original Power Rangers TV show.

I made up my own Power Ranger, and he was the Black Ranger. I made a zord for him and everything. Two weeks later, they introduced a black ranger on the show... His name was Zach. I was so scared I never watched Power Rangers again.

I have trouble remembering lots of imaginary play. I remember reading a lot. I remember construction toys and building things, but not creating stories around the constructions. What imaginary play I remember was that I followed the cues of the other children more often that invented my own narratives. If we played super heroes today I was confused if we played pirates tomorrow.

I played out in the street drawing a town with other neighborhood kids, I would say that was make believe spontaneous play. I played in the sandbox making buildings and homes and roads. I built train sets and played with it, I built out of Lincoln Logs and played. I played with dolls too and Polly Pockets. I also liked acting out scenes from shows with my dolls.

I didn't do much pretend and would get sort of exasperated when other kids would start with "Let's pretend...". I felt like it was a lot of work when we could make something or play in the dirt or catch insects. I'd end up wandering out of the scenario because it just couldn't hold my imagination.

I preferred playing with things I could touch or take apart and only have a couple of memories involving pretend. I just wasn't very good at it.

We'd build forts and then just sit in them, with no idea of what to do after all the building was done.

I use to get cardboard and draw out complete cities with roads, buildings, and parks laid out so I could drive my matchbook cars on them. I also would use my star wars, buck rodgers, blackhole, and flash gordon action figures to play out sci-fi scenaries that had nothing to do with movie or tv series they were based on. I did the same with my 12" planet of the apes and star trek action figures. I also made playsets made out of styrofoam and construction paper. The 70's and early 80's were pretty much me advoiding the neighborhood kids who wanted me to play football with them so I could play out various scenarios with my action figures on homemade sets. I miss those days.

I followed the lines of some aspergers girls who still play imaginatively. I would do fine if it was my own game, and I was playing on my own. Looking back on things though, the storylines were lifted from movies and tv shows. For example, when I was 7, I had my troll dolls living in the doll house, and the ninja turtles kicked them out and brought their barbie hanger-on girlfriends. I see now that they basically made it a crack den and it was a story of gangsters and their 'hos' which I must have seen in some gangster movie but I had no idea what any of that stuff was at that age, I was pretty naive. ! ! lol

I did not play imaginative games well with other kids though. It was exhausting and boring for me and I'd quickly want to go home or do my own thing again, or go play their nintendo or computer.