These dramatic play themes and tips will help you set up dramatic play at home or in your classroom with children with autism. Dramatic play has many benefits, including teaching a variety of social and cognitive skills to little learners.
Dramatic play themes included in this post
- Hair salon
- Flower shop
- Doll diaper
- Gingerbread man
- Ice cream parlor
- Airport (video)
- Cookie shop (video)
- Grocery store (video)
- Pizza parlor (video)
- Auto shop (video)
What is dramatic play?
For children with autism, these types of games are quite abstract and often difficult to understand. We break down our dramatic play themes into several, clear steps to make them understandable and fun for children with autism.
Learning to play dramatic play games, provides children with autism with game choices to share with regularly developing children. These games help increase appropriate social skills and interactions for children with autism and other special needs.
Today, I will share with you some of my favorite dramatic play themes with awesome tutorials for creating similar games at home with your little ones!
What are the types of dramatic play?
There are two primary types of dramatic play. The first is structured play and the second is unstructured play.
Structured play involves set roles, specific guidelines, prompts and potentially goals. Whereas, unstructured play allows children to decide on their own roles and actions.
Why is it called dramatic play?
Dramatic play is sometimes also called “sociodramatic play” in academic research. Quite simply, dramatic play is just pretend play. It involves role play and acting out every day, life situations in a controlled environment, such as at home, in the classroom or in a therapy practice.
What skills does dramatic play develop?
A variety of dramatic play themes provides opportunities for children with autism to develop different cognitive and social skills.
Dramatic play benefits
There are many different benefits to teaching dramatic play.
Dramatic Play Themes for Kids
These are some dramatic play examples.
How to set up a dramatic play area
If you are planning to engage your child or students in dramatic play, you may want to set up a dedicated space for dramatic play.
This could be a corner of your home or even a separate room if you have the extra space.
You could keep this dedicated space reserved for dramatic play and just switch out the theme as you go along. Maybe you could change the theme each week. That would be fun!
Hair salon from Strong Start
Set out some doll heads (or dolls), brushes, combs and rollers and you’ve set up hair salon dramatic play.
Flower Shop from Play to Learn Preschool
Setting up a pretend play flower shop is so much fun. All you need are some fake flowers, some printed labels showing the prices and pretend money to purchase the flowers.
Doll diaper station from Happy Hooligans
The doll diaper station is such a fun idea for a dramatic play theme. Set out some baby dolls, changing pads, doll clothing and diapers.
This activity builds fine motor skills (putting on diapers and clothing the dolls) in addition to role play and new vocabulary.
Gingerbread man dramatic play from Fun-A-Day
Lead your child or students in creating sweet gingerbread men.
Ice cream parlor from Pre-K Pages (with free printable)
Set up a simple ice cream station with bowls, spoons, cotton balls and pompoms.
Dramatic Play Videos
The videos below will help you set up dramatic play in your home or classroom.
Airport Dramatic Play Center
Isn’t this airport dramatic play just the cutest activity ever? I absolutely love it! This is a great opportunity to talk about the different roles on the plane such as flight attendant, passenger, pilot, etc.
You can also work on ideas such as appropriate behavior on the plane such as staying seated, doing fun activities while up in the air,
Cookie Shop Dramatic Play
Set up an adorable cookie shop dramatic play area to pretend bake,
Grocery Store Dramatic Play
Grocery store dramatic play is an important theme to work on with your little learners with autism. The grocery store can be a difficult place to navigate for autistic children so talking about shopping at the grocery store and going through the various behaviors necessary to shop at the store beforehand in your home or classroom is a great idea.
Pizza Parlor Dramatic Play
Pizza parlor play is a fun dramatic play theme to incorporate into your lesson plans? Set up a cute table, give each child a role such as waiter or waitress, host, client, etc and work on building conversation skills, teaching new vocabulary, expressive and receptive language skills and more.
Auto shop
This adorable auto shop imaginative play space looks like so much fun! Work on writing skills, building skills, teach new vocabulary, role play and more.
More Autism Learning Resources
- The Successful Interaction with a Child with Autism Course – learn to better understand your autistic child or students with this complete course.
- Autism Activities Workbook Bundle – build communication skills, fine motor skills, sensory play skills and daily living skills, while helping your child or students to successfully manage any difficult behaviors, with these fun, educational, printable activities.
- Autism Adapted Books Bundle – build communication skills with my collection of printable adapted books for autistic learners.
- Autism Social Stories Bundle – a collection of printable social stories to help your little learners work on their social skills.
- Sensory Communication Workbook – Build communication skills with simple sensory activities.
- How to Make a Communication Binder Guide & Workbook – Learn how to create a Communication Binder for your child or student with autism using real photos. Follow my expert guide to learn how to use it to increase communication skills.
- Zoo Animals Play Dough Mats Bundle – use these printable play dough mat to work on the names of the animals, build language skills, and increase fine motor strength and precision in a fun, sensory way!
More Dramatic Play Ideas on SLH
Dramatic Play Themes
Enjoy your dramatic play themes with your child or students with autism. Use these pretend play ideas at home, in your classroom or in your private practice.
Pin for later!
First published March 5, 2016. Last updated May 10, 2023 with more information, additional tips, and better readability.
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