Autism comes from the word ‘autos’ meaning self and was coined roughly around 1910 by a psychiatrist called Dr. Eugen Bleuler to describe self engaged schizophrenic patients. 

The few important symptoms or manifestations of the ASD spectrum are not being able to communicate in verbal or non verbal ways and being self engaged. So the child who is engaged in self and cannot interact with surroundings is the important feature of this neurodevelopmental condition.

Human beings are a social animal and being engaged in society is always promoting progress and well being at any age and stage of life, has been proven over years.

The question is, is that self engaged child different from a toy engaged child? 

The answer is YES. This thought totally comes from learning and clinical practice both. There are few children that are just running around in the room without referring to human and non human items at all. And when they receive right treatment, they might start engaging exclusively with toys without any ability to engage with people around, during the play. Both the categories are level 3- autism requiring substantial support. But there is a great difference between these two.

The children playing with toys or at least referring to them even for self play, are closer to typical development than the earlier one. This child may not know how to play with another human being but noticing the toys or things in the surrounding is the first step towards betterment. It’s not recommended or advisable to encourage toy engagement without human engagement  but it is the first step in the progress from self engaged behaviour where there is complete disregard to the surrounding  whatsoever. 

Just like ‘echolalia’ which means repetition of words by a child  and is not good with child speech development in mind but IT IS  a stepping stone when non- non-verbal child is becoming verbal and its normal around the age of 2 to 3 years old where the child is learning to form his or her own content in speech.

Also it’s important to remember that ‘TOYS’ are just a medium of play and Play is not equal to toys. We should be able to engage children also without toys in physical activities and that will lead to real time physical growth and brain wiring.