Spontaneous imaginary companion (SIC) creation in childhood is a typical imaginative play behaviour associated with advanced sociocognitive skills; however, the direction of causality has not been established. To investigate this experimentally, researchers must determine whether children can create, on request, qualitatively equivalent imaginary…

One of the deficits observed in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is impaired imaginative play. One form of imaginative play common in many typically developing (TD) children is having an imaginary companion (IC). The occurrence of ICs has not been investigated extensively in children with ASD. We examined differences in parent report of IC between…

Relations between having an imaginary companion (IC) and (i) descriptions of a real-life friend, (ii) theory of mind performance, and (iii) reported prosocial behaviour and behavioural difficulties were investigated in a sample of 5-year-olds (N?=?159). Children who had an IC were more likely than their peers without an IC to describe their best…

Background: Previous research has reported a link between imaginary companions (ICs) in middle childhood and the perception of verbal material in ambiguous auditory stimuli. These findings have been interpreted in terms of commonalities in the cognitive processes underlying children's engagement with ICs and adults' reporting of imaginary verbal…