Abstract
Before coming to Norway, I was a teacher in a mainstream primary school in Indonesia for several years. During my years teaching there, I was assigned to be a contact teacher. In each class I was in charge of, there was at least one student with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Due to the pupil´s severity, after long discussion with parents, teachers and therapist, mostly these pupils were placed in mainstream school because they have mild autism. One of the characteristics of pupils with autism is difficulty in communication and making relationship with other people, including teachers and peers (Kirk, S. 2011). This condition made the student often isolated from peers. The lack of social skills is one of other characteristics of students with ASD. The isolation does not only happen during teaching time but also other activities during school hours for example play time both indoor and outdoor. While I was teaching there I often observed them during “play time”. I observed that these pupils with ASD, regardless their limitation in understanding social cues, have the interest to play. They could spend time playing by themselves as well as have the desire to play with their classmates. The classmates without ASD were also interested to play with them. This particular session catches my attention on how to maximize play time in order to improve student´s social skills. I observed that the attraction shown by these pupils with ASD can be used for their own benefit, which is improving their social skills. From that observation my interest towards play time arises. Play time is and accessible by teachers, peers and students with ASD. Every school is facilitated with things that pupils can use to play with or arena where students can play at. The main question I would like to address in this research is how to use play time to improve social skills of students with ASD. I hope that this thesis can give positive contribution for other educators in emphasizing play time for the development of their pupils with ASD. The aim of this research is to have a platform easily accessed by educators to find different kinds of play which they can implement to their students with ASD in order to improve their social skills. Many articles study about the effect of play in improving social skills of students with ASD. By conducting a literature review study, I hope to gather different kinds of play time that give significant contribution in improving social skills of students with ASD. At the end this research can be used by educators as the source of different types of play to be implemented to students with ASD.