Ronnie Cane
News
February 3, 2026

Constructive play and the object-oriented neurodivergent mind

The distinction developmental psychology documented, then buried

Sara Smilansky’s (1922-2006; known for her work in developmental and educational psychology and research into types of play) taxonomy of play types distinguished four categories: functional play, constructive play, dramatic play, and games with rules. Her subsequent research privileged “sociodramatic play” — dramatic play in social settings — as “the most mature type of play.”

The developmental psychology literature followed her emphasis. Decades of research positioned dramatic play as the developmental gold standard: role assumption, character inhabitation, and social negotiation through imaginary scenarios. The child who voices the dolls, animates the action figures, performs the vroom-vroom sounds whilst pushing cars around tracks — this became the template for “normal” play development.

But Smilansky herself documented a fundamental distinction that her own framework then obscured. She noted that dramatic play is “person-oriented and not material and/or object oriented.”

The child engaged in dramatic play inhabits characters — the child engaged in constructive play arranges systems, as the character they already are.

Different cognitive orientations. Not developmental hierarchy.

Constructive play involves goal-directed manipulation of materials. The child “begins with the end in mind; there’s a focus on producing something, on solving a problem.” The satisfaction comes from achieved purpose — the completed airport, the functional city, the scenario that works — rather than from imaginative inhabitation of characters within those spaces.

The framing error occurs when orientation difference gets interpreted as developmental progression. Object-oriented cognition isn’t failed person-oriented cognition. It’s a distinct cognitive emphasis that serves different functions, builds different capacities and, most significantly and most interestingly, anticipates different adult competencies.

The developmental and educational literature’s bias toward sociodramatic play as “most mature” merely mirrors the institutional bias toward person-oriented function more broadly. It marginalises the systems-thinkers, the spatial reasoners, and the children who build infrastructure rather than comply with it by performing within it.

Grounded-in-reality play as neurodivergent specialisation

Recent neurodiversity research demonstrates what Smilansky’s taxonomy predicted but developmental psychology ignored: neurodivergent children systematically prefer constructive play to dramatic or “sociodramatic” play.

Children with autism show marked preference for “grounded-in-reality” play — creating scenarios that reflect actual systems and relationships rather than imaginative transformations. Research on neurodivergent play found children “preferred to play with toy trains by setting up tracks and engaging in other kinds of construction activities rather than engaging in pretend play.”

This isn’t because of a failure of imagination (if you know a neurodivergent person, you’ll know imagination failure is a laughable idea). This also is not because of an inability to reach the “stages of maturation” psychology literature has previously outlined. It’s simply a different cognitive emphasis.

The child who spends hours building an airport with functional spatial relationships — hospital near the accident site, runway orientation accounting for wind patterns, terminal placement optimising passenger flow — exercises systems thinking. The scenario must honour how things actually work. The relationships must be functional. The snapshot must be true to operational logic.

No character voices required. No narrative performance. No animation. But, inevitably, still the (performed, still) presence of authority: “I’m the air traffic controller, you can’t land yet!”

The satisfaction comes from achieved coherence — the system works, the relationships function, the structure holds integrity — object-oriented cognition expressing itself through play.

Baron-Cohen’s neurodiversity framework (see citations) argues for approaches that don’t “pathologise and focus disproportionately on what the person struggles with” but instead recognise cognitive orientations with distinct strengths. Research demonstrates neurodivergent children who prefer constructive activities often show “above average skills in creative thinking, visuospatial reasoning” and related capacities.

The Van Gogh Curve, a framework developed by Olivier Boether — which reconceptualises apparent deficits as specialised excellences — applies here directly. Van Gogh’s way of seeing wasn’t deficient. It was differently excellent. The constructive player’s way of engaging with objects isn’t failed dramatic play. It’s successful systems thinking.

Monotropic focus patterns manifest through sustained engagement with single construction projects rather than rapid switching between imaginary scenarios. Executive function develops through goal-directed achievement rather than social negotiation. Spatial reasoning strengthens through attention to functional relationships.

The neurodivergent child arranging toy planes for five hours isn’t struggling to play properly. They’re thinking in systems whilst others re-enact the stories already internalised in their mind.

What constructive play actually serves: the architecture of becoming

I’ve always been fascinated by play and playfulness, and have even written about it as the opposite of tyranny. So let’s understand what play serves.

Developmentally, constructive play serves specific developmental functions that dramatic play does not address.

Research demonstrates that constructive play activities and spatial ability explain 38% of variance in mathematical word problem-solving performance. Construction play supports scientific reasoning. The child who builds airports with attention to functional systems exercises precisely the spatial and systems reasoning that constructive play develops.

The cognitive capacities being built during constructive play:

Spatial intelligence through arrangement of functional relationships.

Systems thinking through attention to how components interact.

Goal-directed achievement through sustained focus on completing coherent structures.

Relational logic through understanding which elements need proximity and which require separation.

These aren’t incidental to neurodivergent cognition. In fact, they’re central.

The scenario-builder practices being someone who creates functional systems. The city designer rehearses spatial intelligence and relational logic. The child who dismantles the completed airport after stepping back to admire it isn’t playing incorrectly — they’ve completed the constructive project and experienced the satisfaction of achieved purpose, and know that the next play starts with the next blank slate.

This anticipates adult capacities. The constructive player becomes the architect, the urban planner, the systems designer, the engineer. Cognitive orientations established in childhood represent enduring aspects of cognitive style that legitimately persist across the lifespan.

The hobby maintained into adulthood — critical city and function design on paper, zoning optimisation, and infrastructure planning (specificity for argument’s sake) — represents adult expression of the same cognitive orientation that built toy airports in childhood.

Not pathology — trajectory; the architecture of becoming.

Erikson (1902-1994; known for his theory on psychosocial development of human beings; he coined the phrase identity crisis) understood play as central to identity development. But he didn’t restrict identity-building play to role assumption. The ability to take initiative “fosters the anticipation of what one might become and one’s future role in life.” The child who demonstrates initiative through sustained constructive projects anticipates adult capacities no less than the child who plays doctor or house.

Object-orientation as an unrecognised and unrealised pathway

Developmental psychology privileges person-oriented cognition because institutional systems privilege person-oriented function. Thankfully, that’s rather simple, and thus also rather easy to understand. Schools reward social negotiation. Workplaces prioritise interpersonal dynamics. Clinical frameworks measure social reciprocity.

But economic and technological infrastructure — that which is relatively recent, discussed as cybernetic attention — actually depends on object-oriented cognition. Someone has to design the buildings. Someone has to plan the cities. Someone has to think in systems about how components relate and functions integrate.

The scenario-builder who creates structures within which others find space to become offers not animation but architecture. Not stories but the stages on which stories get told. Not character voices but spatial logic that makes the characters’ movements possible.

Both cognitive orientations serve developmental functions. Both anticipate adult capacities. Neither is superior. They’re just different emphases within human cognitive possibility.

The question “was my play normal?” dissolves under proper examination.

Constructive play represents legitimate neurodivergent specialisation: object-oriented cognition expressing itself through childhood activity, building capacities that manifest in adult function, and creating infrastructure that others, including one’s present and developing character, inhabit.

Person-oriented cognition thinks in characters and narratives. Object-oriented cognition thinks in systems and relationships. Developmental frameworks that treat the former as “mature” and the latter as “immature” reveal ONLY institutional bias, not any developmental or psychological truth.

The neurodivergent child arranging toys into frozen moments of functional perfection is not failing to play but is building a different kind of intelligence — one that economic systems depend on, institutions systematically undervalue, and diagnostic frameworks continue pathologising as a deficit rather than recognising as latent systems excellence.