Harrop Clare, Green Jonathan, Hudry Kristelle
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA
University of Manchester, UK.
Autism. 2017 Jan;21(1):37-50. doi: 10.1177/1362361315622410. Epub 2016 Mar 2.
While sex differences in play have been extensively observed in typical development, only a handful of studies have explored this phenomenon in depth with children with autism spectrum disorders. This study explored sex differences in play complexity and toy engagement within caregiver-child interaction samples for preschool-aged children (2-5 years 11 months) with an autism spectrum disorder who were matched to typically developing children on sex and non-verbal development. Overall we found that girls and boys with autism spectrum disorder were largely equivalent in their play complexity. Despite similar play, girls and boys with autism spectrum disorder differed in a number of ways in their toy engagement, replicating traditional gender differences-girls played more with dolls and domestic items (though at lower rates than typically developing girls) and boys played more with the garage and cars (though at lower rates than typically developing boys). Our findings support the importance and utility of examining sex differences in autism spectrum disorder in light of those observed within typical development.
虽然在正常发育过程中，游戏中的性别差异已被广泛观察到，但只有少数研究深入探讨了自闭症谱系障碍儿童的这一现象。本研究在与发育正常儿童性别和非语言发育相匹配的自闭症谱系障碍学龄前儿童（2至5岁11个月）的照顾者-儿童互动样本中，探究了游戏复杂性和玩具参与度方面的性别差异。总体而言，我们发现患有自闭症谱系障碍的女孩和男孩在游戏复杂性方面大致相当。尽管游戏情况相似，但患有自闭症谱系障碍的女孩和男孩在玩具参与度上存在多种差异，重现了传统的性别差异——女孩更多地玩洋娃娃和家居用品（尽管频率低于发育正常的女孩），男孩更多地玩车库和汽车（尽管频率低于发育正常的男孩）。我们的研究结果支持了根据正常发育中观察到的情况来研究自闭症谱系障碍中性别差异的重要性和实用性。
