Play Skills of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Meta-Analysis of Single-Subject Studies

The purpose of this review was to examine studies that focused on play skills in children with autism and to calculate effect sizes. A total of 23 articles were analyzed according to the What Works Clearinghouse standards for single-subject research, and Tau-U was calculated. As a result of the review, 19 of the studies met the qualitative standards with reservations and 4 met the standards without reservations. The effect sizes of all studies were calculated as 16 very large effect, 6 large effect and 1 moderate effect. The results of the review show that although most of the studies met the qualitative criteria with reservations, they had strong effect sizes.