Three studies are presented which test the claim that children with au
tism can engage in pretence under certain circumstances. Experiment 1
assessed the spontaneous and elicited play of 14 children with autism,
matched on the basis of receptive language abilities to a group of 14
children with moderate learning difficulties. The children with autis
m produced significantly less pretend play than these controls, confir
ming previous findings. In contrast Expt 2 showed that the same group
of children with autism were not impaired in their ability to carry ou
t instructions thought to require pretend play. A third study compared
the ability of 15 children with autism, and language-matched learning
disabled and normal controls, to generate pretend acts. The children
with autism produced pretend acts at a significantly slower rate than
controls. It is argued, contrary to a meta-representational deficit ac
count, that children with autism can engage in the mechanics of preten
d play, but are impaired at producing pretence because of generativity
problems. The extent to which a generativity deficit might be pervasi
ve in autism is discussed.