Play is a significant part of childhood. Typically developing children exhibit a wide range of interests within their play behavior, but children with autism do not. The purpose of this study was to design and implement an assessment tool that will capture the constellation of behaviors indicating play interests in young children. The Early Play Interests Assessment (EPIA) includes categories of play behavior and their components behaviors. Additionally, measures of child affect were built into the EPIA. All behaviors were observed under various environmental conditions. The results show that the EPIA was useful in observing toddlers' play behavior within behavioral categories and components and in assessing the interactions among these measures of play interests. The results are discussed in relation to the importance of creating observational systems to quantify play interests in typical and atypical children and for establishing a link between the information gathered in assessment and the planning and implementation of autism interventions.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:unt.edu/info:ark/67531/metadc12142 |
| Date | 12 1900 |
| Creators | Kodaka, Mitsuru |
| Contributors | Ala'i-Rosales, Shahla, Rosales-Ruiz, Jesus, Ellis, Janet |
| Publisher | University of North Texas |
| Source Sets | University of North Texas |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | Text |
| Rights | Public, Copyright, Kodaka, Mitsuru, Copyright is held by the author, unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved. |
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