It's a myth that spectrum kids don't pretend play. Girls in particular often can have very elaborate fantasy scenarios. Now I have noticed that my DD's pretend play is a bit more "scripted" than her NT older sister's pretend play was at the same age, even when playing with the same kind of toys (Disney Princesses, My Little Pony, Barbies, etc.)

Thanks so much to all of you for your dialogue on this! Also, I think that @EvelynRepass brings up a good point. Environment probably has a lot to do with how a child acts - probably how any child, spectrum or not. I know that the more comfortable Alec is, the more typical he acts. Except when we go to the mall because he has an escalator fixation. :)

Oh YES, that describes my boy! He's got a very vivid and sometimes odd imagination. He likes to tell me what to say and how to respond to what he is about to say to me, or ask me. Sometimes it's a made up joke, or sometimes it's some crazy off the wall story. I know he does this because he likes knowing in advance what's going to be said, or what will happen. He's got the conversation all planed out in his head, so he thinks he's doing me a favor by giving me his script notes in advance.

I go along with it, but, it doesn't go over so well on the playground. Other kids are like, "what? why are you telling ME what to say to you?" time to teach him it's ok to do that at home, but not on playground. Difficult concept.

He also has had a pretend beetle and butterfly (don't ask me why) since he was about 3 years old. He's 5 now. To this day when he sees a white butterfly (it has to be a white one) he will say, "Look Mom, it's my butterfly! - he came to see me"

I think it's fine to go along with their imaginative side. If that's how they want to play then ok. I understand the concern though too of how much is too much. But, I have noticed a decline in this type of play ever since we got him involved in his social group a few months back, and more play dates. So perhaps it's just a phase that some kids go through.

My son made his first friend at the age of 5. Before that he would play with others but just wander away when he lost interest. He became very close to a pair of twins. They continued the close friendship (3 years) until last year when the twins moved away. It took him a long time to form another close friendship but has recently formed one with a little girl down the street. It has been hard on him because he attends school 30 minutes away from our neighborhood so his school friends only get to see him at school. He is well liked at school but since he tends to prefer to play with girls he's never had an invite over to their houses (he has reached that dreaded age where gender is noticed.) He will invite others into his pretend play but also doesn't notice when they lose interest and leave the game. Dr.s are surprised at how social he is and how well he plays with others. They think he is gifted but I'm not too sure of that. He really struggles and works hard at all he does. I contribute his social ability to the fact that we have had him in therapy groups since he was 6 months so he's learned it.

I found this by searching "imagination". I am looking for someone else who has a daughter with an imagination like mine. She is 10, and her imagination is still very vivid. She was just diagnosed, and as a child, she was always extremely elaborate in her fantasies. Now today, she thinks she is a mermaid. I don't know if this is a problem or not. I'm going to post a new question on it. But I definitely can testify that some kids with autism can be VERY imaginative, and maybe that is more common with girls. My 4 year old son, while his play seems very scripted and limited in creativity, his imagination is very active in other ways. He will be in a room, and he'll see things no one else sees. It tends to creep people out, but I really think he is just seeing shadows, and he smells things, senses the smallest movements in the room from the heater, etc. Just those heightened senses seem to make his imagination that much more extreme. The other day he saw an angel in the corner. Then he said his brother's bad dream just "came in the window" and then "oh, it's gone now." There was nothing there. He will hear things and think it's a dragon coming or something else related to his fears and bad dreams. But the pretend dogs you described remind me so much of my daughter. She had an imaginary friend, and she would come up with scenarios that were very real to her. Now she is 10. It seems like what has happened now over the years is that unless a group of kids are playing a game that allows her to pretend to be something she wants to pretend, like a cat or a wolf, or a mermaid or fairy, she is not able to play with them. She actually refuses because she doesn't know how. And unless her sister or friends (who are all younger) will do the play SHE wants them to do, she gets upset. She has to control the play, because there is a script in her mind that HAS to play out, and she has difficulty seeing the other's point of view, or understanding why they might not want to act out her script. So the imagination is there, but there are definitely social issues. I wish we had known sooner, we did not find out till she was 10. We could've intervened on this at a younger age, and it might have helped.