One of the newest rebrands of Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) is “play-based ABA.” At first glance, it feels reassuring to parents and educators who have heard the critiques of traditional ABA. Instead of a child sitting at a table with flashcards, they’re now on the floor surrounded by toys, pretending with dolls or rolling cars across the carpet. The therapist smiles, joins the play, and reassures: “See? We’re not drilling or punishing — we’re just playing.”

But underneath the cheerful facade, the mechanism hasn’t changed. ABA, no matter how softly it’s packaged, still centers on shaping compliance and extinguishing behaviors the therapist deems undesirable. The environment might look nurturing, but the goal remains behavioral control.

In “play-based” sessions, toys are often not used for genuine exploration or creativity. They’re used as reinforcers, a behavioral currency. Play isn’t child-led; it’s adult-orchestrated. If a child lines up cars instead of driving them, a perfectly valid and often calming autistic way of engaging, the therapist redirects them back to the “target” behavior. If the child gets absorbed in sensory play like spinning wheels or squishing Play-Doh, the therapist interrupts, folding the moment back into the structured lesson.

This isn’t play. It’s performance; a simulation of play designed to maintain the adult’s control.

Why True Play Matters

To understand why this is harmful, we have to understand what play actually is. Developmental psychologists and neuroscientists have long established that play is not a luxury; it’s a biological necessity.

Neuroscientist Jaak Panksepp (2007) identified play as one of the brain’s core emotional systems, just as vital as the drives for seeking, care, and attachment. True play activates brain regions responsible for emotion regulation, social understanding, and creativity. It is where children learn the art of being human, not through instruction, but through exploration.

True play is:

• Freely chosen: the child decides when, how, and with what to play.
• Self-directed: the child leads, experiments, and invents.
• Intrinsically motivated: joy arises from the act of playing itself, not from a reward or praise.

When children play authentically, their brains release endorphins, cortisol levels drop, and neural pathways for curiosity and resilience are strengthened (Panksepp, 2007; Gray, 2013).

When ABA co-opts play as a means of control, those benefits are disrupted. The play stops being about safety, discovery, and connection — and becomes about pleasing the adult. The child learns: “I can play, but only if I play the way they want me to.”

The Mask of Compliance

“Play-based ABA” is often more insidious than old-school discrete trial training because it’s harder to recognize as control. A table full of flashcards makes power visible. But when the same conditioning is wrapped in toys and smiles, the coercion hides behind warmth.

Children may appear happy during sessions, I mean, they laugh, they engage, they mimic. Yet beneath that, many are learning to mask: to hide their authentic expressions and replace them with socially acceptable ones to avoid correction or disapproval.

Masking, or camouflaging, has been well-documented as a risk factor for mental health challenges in autistic individuals. Studies by Hull et al. (2017) and Cassidy et al. (2018) found that long-term masking is correlated with anxiety, depression, identity confusion, and even suicidality. These studies reveal what autistic adults have long said: that forced normalization, even when disguised as play, erodes self-worth over time.

Conditioning a child to “play right” may look harmless in the short term. But the message it sends is “Your way is wrong; our way is correct.” This becomes a lifelong wound.

Play as Relationship vs. Play as Reinforcer

The starkest difference between authentic play-based therapy and ABA-style play lies in purpose.

In trauma-informed and developmental frameworks like DIR/Floortime (Greenspan & Wieder, 1998), play is the language of relationship. The adult enters the child’s world, follows their lead, and uses shared play to build safety and trust. There is no ulterior motive beyond connection.

In The PLAY Project (Solomon et al., 2014), parents are trained to meet their children where they are developmentally, following their interests and sensory preferences. Similarly, Integrated Play Groups (Wolfberg, 2003) use peer-supported play to promote inclusion and imagination, not compliance.

In contrast, ABA-style play is not about joining. It’s about steering. The adult’s focus remains on shaping external behaviors and collecting data, not deepening the relationship or emotional regulation. The child’s joy is secondary to the program’s metrics.

Children know the difference. They know when they are being joined versus when they are being managed. One fosters safety; the other breeds vigilance.

The Gaslighting of Good Intentions

Parents often enter play-based ABA believing it’s gentle and modern; a far cry from the rigid systems of the past. And who could blame them? The sessions look wholesome. The therapists talk about “fun” and “natural play.”

But this linguistic shift can amount to institutional gaslighting. Parents are told, “We don’t drill anymore. We’re trauma-informed now.” Yet the system still operates from the same premise: “This behavior is wrong and must be replaced.”

When families question the approach, they are often told they’re “misunderstanding the science.” But the science of play and the science of control are not compatible. The nervous system knows the difference between joy and compliance — even when the adult doesn’t.

The Illusion of Progress

ABA proponents often claim that play-based methods are “evidence-based” because they produce measurable outcomes. The problem is what they measure. Most studies in ABA research focus on short-term behavior change, not long-term psychological health, identity, or self-regulation.

As Milton (2012) and Kapp et al. (2019) argue, this focus on surface-level “improvement” overlooks well-being, autonomy, and lived experience. Data showing increased “appropriate play” doesn’t tell us whether a child feels safe, seen, or accepted.

When play becomes a vehicle for compliance, any progress achieved is illusory. The child may look more “typical,” but often at the cost of their authenticity and trust.

What Real Play Looks Like

Authentic play-based support, whether in education, therapy, or home,  is radically different from ABA’s structured mimicry.

• The child leads. Their curiosity determines the path.
• The adult follows. Guidance is responsive, not prescriptive.
• Stimming and scripting are honored. These are legitimate ways of communicating and self-regulating.
• Goals emerge organically. Growth happens through connection, not correction.

Approaches like DIR/Floortime, child-led occupational therapy, and Integrated Play Groups prove that play can be therapeutic without being coercive. These models are evidence-based (Solomon et al., 2014; Wolfberg, 2003), but their evidence lies in improved emotional connection, language development, and self-regulation, not mere compliance.

Beyond the Illusion

Play-based ABA sells the image of joy while perpetuating control. It hides obedience training behind the language of child development. But a smile is not consent, and engagement under duress is not connection.

Until the field abandons its obsession with compliance, it cannot become trauma-informed. When joy becomes conditional, play becomes counterfeit.

Children deserve better. They deserve real play — the kind that builds safety, trust, and autonomy. Play that belongs to them. Play that asks nothing but their presence.

References

Cassidy, S. A., Bradley, L., Shaw, R., & Baron-Cohen, S. (2018). Risk markers for suicidality in autistic adults: The role of depression, alexithymia, and social camouflaging. Molecular Autism, 9(42). https://doi.org/10.1186/s13229-018-0226-4

Gray, P. (2013). Free to learn: Why unleashing the instinct to play will make our children happier, more self-reliant, and better students for life. Basic Books.

Greenspan, S. I., & Wieder, S. (1998). The child with special needs: Encouraging intellectual and emotional growth.Addison-Wesley.

Hull, L., Mandy, W., Lai, M. C., Baron-Cohen, S., et al. (2017). “Putting on my best normal”: Social camouflaging in adults with autism spectrum conditions. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 47(8), 2519–2534. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-017-3166-5

Kapp, S. K., Gillespie-Lynch, K., Sherman, L. E., & Hutman, T. (2013). Deficit, difference, or both? Autism and neurodiversity. Developmental Psychology, 49(1), 59–71.

Milton, D. E. (2012). On the ontological status of autism: The ‘double empathy problem.’ Disability & Society, 27(6), 883–887.

Panksepp, J. (2007). Can play diminish ADHD and facilitate the construction of the social brain? Journal of the Canadian Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 16(2), 57–66.

Solomon, R., Van Egeren, L. A., Mahoney, G., Huber, M. S. Q., & Zimmerman, P. (2014). PLAY Project Home Consultation intervention program for young children with autism spectrum disorders: A randomized controlled trial. Journal of Developmental & Behavioral Pediatrics, 35(8), 475–485. https://doi.org/10.1097/DBP.0000000000000096

Wolfberg, P. J. (2003). Peer play and the autism spectrum: The art of guiding children’s socialization and imagination.International Play Association.