Children with Autism respond well to puppets

New research from ‘Yale Child Study Center’ demonstrates that puppets can hold the attention of children with autism, raising the potential for developing more engaging therapies. The study is the first to test anecdotal evidence of the attention span of children with autism to puppets as opposed to people.

The project studied children with autism alongside a control group and monitored their attention to a video of a discussion between a puppet called Violet and a human counterpart. All of the children spent a similar proportion of time watching Violet when she spoke whereas the children with autism paid less attention to the human counterpart when she was speaking; they often looked at the ball she was playing with or her body instead of her face.

The researchers were keen to point out that while there was no preference for the puppet, the puppet did induce more typical patterns of attention in the children with autism. Study co-author Katarzyna Chawarska, the Emily Fraser Beede Professor of Child Psychiatry at Yale School of Medicine, and director of the National Institutes of Health Autism Center of Excellence at the Yale Child Study Center, said that further research should examine the feasibility and efficacy of introducing puppets to augment the existing therapeutic approaches.