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The Importance of Pretend Play in Child Development: An Occupational Therapy Perspective
Abstract and Figures
Play is a complex behaviour and is defined as being more internally than externally motivated, transcending reality as well as reflecting reality, controlled by the player, involving more attention to process than product, safe, usually fun, unpredictable, pleasurable and spontaneous and involving non-obligatory active engagement (Bundy 1997, Stewart et al 1991). Pretend play, which occurs between the ages of 18 months and 6 years, reflects these qualities of play.
Using the World Health Organisation's classification of body functions and structures, activities and participation (ICIDH-2, WHO 1999), this paper outlines the skills that are essential for pretend play ability and asserts that if there are any impairments in these skills the child experiences a reduced ability to pretend play. This leads to possible participation restrictions in the child's life, such as difficulties in fulfilling usual social roles. Cognitive, social and emotional skills are presented as having the biggest impact on pretend play development, while the motor and sensorimotor skills that enable the child to manipulate objects in the environment are presented as being of secondary importance.
Two models are offered which illustrate the importance of pretend play to child development and the sequence of play development. The paper concludes by recommending that occupational therapists address and reduce the participation restrictions that some children experience in learning and social situations by enabling a child to increase activity in pretend play.
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... Sosyodramatik oyun en az iki çocuğun bir yetişkin ya da kahramanın rolünü dramatize ettiği oyunlardır (McLoyd, 1982). Sosyodramatik oyunun çocuklara sosyal problem çözme, sıra alma, duygu ve düşüncelerini ifade etme, yaratıcılığı kullanma, soyut düşünme, değişime uyum sağlama ve mantık yürütme gibi pek çok yarar sağlamaktadır (Boucher, 1999;Lifter, 2008;Stagnitti & Unsworth, 2000). Ancak, sosyodramatik oyun diğer oyun türlerine kıyasla daha gelişmiş sosyal, dil ve bilişsel performans gerektirmekte (Ülke-Kürkçüoğlu, 2013; Thorp, Stahmer, & Schreibman, 1995), bu özellikler ise sosyodramatik oyunu diğer oyun türlerinden ayırarak OSB olan çocuklar için en karmaşık oyun türü haline getirmektedir. ...
Oyun, bireyin aktif katılımını, gönüllülüğünü ve güdülenmesini gerektiren, gerçekleştirilirken bireye haz veren ve onu daha fazla güdüleyen sosyal etkinliklerdir. Otizm spektrum bozukluğu (OSB) olan çocukların dil ve iletişim, sosyal etkileşim ve taklit becerilerinde yaşadıkları yetersizlikler nedeniyle özellikle oyun becerileri en çok güçlük yaşadıkları beceriler-den biri haline gelmektedir. Bu araştırmada, OSB olan çocuğa sahip ebeveynlerin çocuklarının sahip olması gerektiğini düşündükleri oyun becerilerine, gereksinimlerine, oyun becerilerinin öğretiminin önemine ve ebeveynlerin oyun öğretiminde bilgi ve beceri gereksinimlerine yönelik görüşlerinin incelenmesi amaçlanmıştır. Durum çalışması modeliyle tasarlanan araştırmanın katılımcıları OSB olan çocuğa sahip 12 ebeveynden oluşmaktadır. Araştırma amaçları doğrultusunda veriler yarı yapılandırılmış görüşmelerle toplanmış ve içerik analizi ile analiz edilmiştir. Bulgular, ebeveynlerin oyun becerilerini öğretme/öğrenme, etkileşim ve sosyalleşme aracı olarak tanımladıklarını, çocuklarının oyun becerilerini edinmelerini önemli ve öncelikli bulduklarını ve çocuklarının oyun bağlamlarının ebeveyn-merkezli olduğunu göstermiştir. Ayrıca, ebeveynlerin çocuklarının sınırlı düzeyde oynadıkları, oyunlarının yinelenen davranışlarla örüntülendiği, çocuklarının sosyalleştireceği nedeniyle sosyodramatik oyun becerilerini edinmeleri, çocuklarının oyun becerilerini desteklemek amacıyla eğitim gereksinimlerinin bulunduğu ve bu gereksinimin aile eğitimleriyle karşılanması gerektiği görüşüne sahip olduklarını göstermiştir. Araştırmada elde edilen bulgular alanyazın çerçevesinde tartışılmış ve ileri uygulamalara ve araştırmalara yönelik önerilerde bulunulmuştur.
... construcción de respuestas grupales a las circunstancias (Stagnitti & Unsworth, 2000), y constante auto/revisión de las acciones propias y de las de los demás. Estas vivencias permiten superar los miedos y explorar emociones, sentimientos y comportamientos en los excluidos. ...
El artículo analiza el arte dramático: talleres, juego dramático, drama creativo, dramatización, improvisación y el teatro mismo, como terapia alternativa para contrarrestar problemáticas psicosociales en sujetos vulnerables y excluidos. Para llevar a cabo este propósito, se utilizó un diseño cualitativo, a través de una perspectiva de tipo documental, que se centró en las categorías arte dramático, y poblaciones vulnerables y excluidas. Se presentan los hallazgos de las relaciones sobre estos conceptos, luego de revisar y analizar las bases de datos Apa Psyc Net, Cambrige J, DOAJ, JSTOR, SCIELO, Science Direct, EBSCO, Wilson, Web of Science, entre otras fuentes. En esta perspectiva, a partir de un trabajo llevado a cabo en un horizonte crítico-interpretativo, se revisaron las producciones realizadas por investigadores usando los instrumentos de matriz bibliográfica y matriz analítica de contenido. Como resultado, se reconoció el arte dramático como herramienta para ayudar a población vulnerable y se identificaron diferentes metodologías y resultados de las investigaciones en las que se utilizó el arte dramático para disminuir las exclusiones. Se concluye que el arte dramático, a partir de la atención al lenguaje corporal, al pensamiento, a la obra teatral, a los cambios que el sujeto tiene en la representación de personajes, entre otros, acrecienta el ingenio y la comunicación, y posibilita un desarrollo estético y plástico. Este tipo de modificaciones aportan a mejorar el nivel biopsicosocial de la población vulnerable y excluida, a reconfigurar su personalidad e historias personales, desarrollar habilidades sociales, mejorar su comunicación, darles herramientas para resolver problemas, a gestionar sus emociones y a potenciar su autoestima; estas capacidades y desarrollos humanos, son sustanciales para contrarrestar las problemáticas psicosociales que acarrean su situación de fragilidad y marginación.
... Gesturing in the context of joint engagement not only facilitates young children's grasp of people's intentions and other mental states (e.g., attention, desire), but also supports their learning of words and how to combine them in multi-word utterances (Iverson & Goldin-Meadow, 2005). Pretend (symbolic) play provides another critical context where gross and fine motor skills develop in tandem with language and theory of mind (ToM; Quinn et al., 2018;Stagnitti & Unsworth, 2000). While engaged in make-believe play, children enact social routines, taking on varied roles and manipulating objects purposefully in the service of their goals. ...
Motor skills have been linked to language and social development with implications for theory of mind. This study examined theory of mind (attribution of intentions task) in school-age children ( N = 62, mean age 8 years; 2 months, standard deviation [ SD] = 1;3) in relation to fine motor skills (grooved pegboard), receptive vocabulary (Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test), receptive grammar (Test for the Reception of Grammar), reading comprehension (Woodcock Reading Mastery Tests), verbal short-term (nonword repetition), and visual-spatial working memory (one-shape array memory). All variables except verbal short-term memory correlated with accuracy on theory of mind. In regression models, fine motor skills accounted for variance in theory of mind after controlling for age, language, and working memory. The results add to research linking fine motor skills with faux pas understanding, indicating the potentially broad impact of motor skills on social cognition. Given the cross-sectional study design, longitudinal research is warranted to address causality.
... Interestingly, developmental psychology has shown that children rely on two additional features: 1) imaginative play and 2) social situatedness. On the one hand, imaginative play allows children to imagine and target goals that they did not encounter previously; by substituting an object with another for example (Lewis et al., 1992;Stagnitti & Unsworth, 2000). The IMAGINE approach attempts to leverage this feature in IMRL by using language to imagine new goals (Colas et al., 2020a). ...
In the quest for autonomous agents learning open-ended repertoires of skills, most works take a Piagetian perspective: learning trajectories are the results of interactions between developmental agents and their physical environment. The Vygotskian perspective, on the other hand, emphasizes the centrality of the socio-cultural environment: higher cognitive functions emerge from transmissions of socio-cultural processes internalized by the agent. This paper argues that both perspectives could be coupled within the learning of autotelic agents to foster their skill acquisition. To this end, we make two contributions: 1) a novel social interaction protocol called Help Me Explore (HME), where autotelic agents can benefit from both individual and socially guided exploration. In social episodes, a social partner suggests goals at the frontier of the learning agent knowledge. In autotelic episodes, agents can either learn to master their own discovered goals or autonomously rehearse failed social goals; 2) GANGSTR, a graph-based autotelic agent for manipulation domains capable of decomposing goals into sequences of intermediate sub-goals. We show that when learning within HME, GANGSTR overcomes its individual learning limits by mastering the most complex configurations (e.g. stacks of 5 blocks) with only few social interventions.
... The skills learned during playing will have an important function for that child throughout life. While playing games, they learn to deal with difficulties, mutual respect, and sharing early [2][3][4][5]. Playing, which has so many functions, is a right for children in a sense and it must be supported [6,7]. ...
The concepts of games and toys have a very important role in children's lives. It contributes to the development of cognitive, motor, psychosocial, emotional, and linguistic skills. It also plays a key role in raising self-confident, creative, and happy children. Therefore, attention should be paid to the concepts of games and toys, which are so important for the child to be a part of society as a healthy individual at every stage of his development. On the other hand, providing playgrounds where children can play comfortably and safely are essential in reducing the risk of accidents related to toys. All health-care components, especially pediatricians and family physicians, should take an active role in ensuring that these play processes, which are the most beautiful parts of childhood, are healthy and safe.
... This study constitutes the first Spanish validation of the JSE-HPS scale in occupational therapy students. This internationally known scale has been used in numerous research studies to analyze the level of empathy of university students from different health professions, such as medicine, nursing, pharmacy, or physiotherapy [12,42,43]. The process of cultural adaptation carried out in this study followed a specific methodology, including being analyzed in detail by bilingual translators, in addition to having several differentiated phases of blinded analysis. ...
Background
In occupational therapy, empathy is a fundamental concept and has a positive impact on health and quality of care outcomes for patients. It is a basic and essential concept that should prevail in the training of occupational therapy students. The aim of this study is to validate and cross-culturally adapt the Jefferson Medical Empathy Scale, version for health professionals (JSE-HPS) in a sample of Spanish university students of occupational therapy.
Methods
A cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted between 2019 and 2020. A convenience sample was selected, consisting of 221 students from the four courses of the Occupational Therapy degree at the Universidad Rey Juan Carlos during the 2019–20 academic year. Each of the participants voluntarily and anonymously completed a sociodemographic data sheet (including age and sex), in addition to the following assessment scales: JSE-HPS and the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI).
Results
A culturally adapted version of the JSE-HPS that guarantees conceptual and grammatical equivalence specific to the study population was obtained. The psychometric analysis of the translated version showed a Cronbach coefficient α of 0.786. The test-retest reliability analysis showed an intraclass correlation coefficient of 0.90 (95% CI = 0.86–0.93, p < 0.0001). Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) showed positive results (χ ² = 269.095, df = 167, p < 0.001, Confirmatory Fit Index [CFI] = 0.90, Root Mean Square Error of Approximation [RMSEA] = 0.04).
Conclusion
The cultural adaptation and psychometric results suggest that the Spanish version of the JSE-HPS is a valid and reliable way to evaluate the empathic ability of occupational therapy students.
... In relation of cognitive skills development, children with ASD in this study also has been reported to be more interested in playing and showed and expansion of play skills including initiating pretend play. Children with ASD were not commonly reported to engage in pretend play often (Jarrold, 2003;Lee et al., 2016;Stagnitti & Unsworth, 2000). This could be due to children's experience of leading the play and with parents joining them, increase the playfulness of the play for children. ...
Play is important for children’s development and used as teaching and learning tool for children. Children’s skills including physical, emotion, social and cognitive are potentially to develop that could transform children into their full potential. Play is effective in supporting children’s development and learning when it is child-directed and focuses on play as the main aim with development and learning as the by-product. Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) faced multifaceted challenges and resulted in receiving little benefit from play. This qualitative study through in-depth semi-structured interviews explores parents of children with ASD’s perspectives about child-led play for children with ASD. Analysis of the interviews found that children with ASD were able to engage in child-led play activities at home and showed positive outcomes in their play, social, language and communication skills as well as their prosocial behaviour. Although positive outcomes have been shown, interpretation of the findings should be cautionary due to limited representation of the data for Malaysian population and can be further improved with varied and more participants. Various source of data to be analysed are recommended to increase sensitivity of the finding interpretation.
... Reliability for each factor was carried out by calculating this coefficient for the items with respect to the global score and the other coefficient for the items of each domain with respect to its value. Cronbach's alpha values >0.70 were considered acceptable to guarantee the internal consistency of the questionnaire [31]. ...
Play is essential in childhood, allowing for a positive trend in development and learning. Health professionals need useful tools to assess it, especially in the case of children with neurodevelopmental disorders. The aim of this study was to validate and cross-culturally adapt the My Child's Play questionnaire and to find out if this instrument allows us to differentiate the play of children with neurodevelopmental disorders from the play of children with neurotypical development. A total of 594 parents completed the questionnaire. A confirmatory factor analysis was conducted, which showed a similar structure to the English version: (1) executive functions; (2) environmental context; (3) play characteristics; and (4) play preferences and interpersonal interactions. The reliability of the analysis was high, both for the whole questionnaire and for the factors it comprises. The results provide evidence of the potential usefulness of the My Child's Play questionnaire for determining play needs and difficulties of children; moreover, this tool can also be used to plan intervention programs according to the needs of each child and family.
Introduction
This study compares the self-initiated pretend play abilities of preschool-aged children with an acquired brain injury, with the self-initiated pretend play ability of their neurotypical peers.
Method
A non-experimental group comparison was conducted between 22 preschool-aged neurotypical children (M = 52.8 months, SD = 7.1 months) and 21 children with an acquired brain injury (ABI, M = 50.5 months, SD = 11.9 months), who had been discharged from inpatient rehabilitation and who were able to engage in a play session. The children were assessed individually using the Child-Initiated Pretend Play Assessment (ChIPPA).
Results
The children with an ABI had significantly lower scores in pretend play ability than their neurotypical peers as measured by the percentage of elaborate play actions in both the conventional (P < .000) and symbolic (P < .000) sections of the ChIPPA, as well as the number of object substitutions (P < .000). The children with an ABI completed significantly less of the play time required compared with their neurotypical peers (P = .001); 66% could not play for the required time. There was no significant difference in the ChIPPA scores of the children with an ABI injured before and after the age of 18 months, nor between children with a severe or moderate injury.
Conclusion
The quality and the quantity of pretend play of preschool-aged children with an ABI are significantly below that of their neurotypical peers. Assessment of pretend play ability and direct intervention in ABI rehabilitation by occupational therapists is essential to enable children with an ABI to participate in pretend play and garner the developmental benefit this affords.
Children’s play has long been studied by clinicians as a window on the individual’s early emotional development. More recently, developmental psychologists have taken an interest in play for what it reveals about early cognitive development. With the rise of developmental research into play, the time is right for an integration of both perspectives. This book answers the need for such a work. It brings together the work of leading workers in the field to provide an excellent overview of clinical and developmental approaches to play for the benefit of professionals in both fields, as well as readers interested in child behaviour.
This paper considers the narrative function of children's play by focusing on interwoven elements of story, imagination, and visual expression. It is argued that both story and play are important features of children's lives. When children engage in storytelling they are participating in a form of play which brings into account both their knowledge of the world and their knowledge of narrative conventions. Context is seen as an important factor in shaping and constraining the stories children tell. The paper concludes that storytelling has the potential to enhance literacy and, therefore, children's oral storytelling in classrooms needs to be encircled.
Focused on the importance of play in evaluating and treating children with disabilities, Play in Occupational Therapy for Children, 2nd Edition presents play theories and assessments along with the theories and assessments reached from research conducted by occupational therapists and occupational scientists. This edition also includes five new chapters that reflect the latest developments in the areas of autism, play assessment, play for institutionalized toddlers, school-based play, and play and assistive technology in an early intervention program to provide you with the most up-to-date information available. Case Studies highlighted in special boxes provide snapshots of real-life situations and solutions to help you apply key concepts in the clinical setting. Clinical trials and outcome studies emphasize evidence-based practice. Key Terms, Chapter Objectives, and Review Questions help you assess and evaluate what youve learned. A clean two-color format highlights learning points to emphasize important concepts. Additional Evolve Resources include video clips for clinical assessment, web links, references, and assessment forms found in the book provide you with additional learning tools.
The Preschool Play Scale and Preschool Play Materials Preference Inventory were administered to 66 pre-school-age boys (35 normal, 31 iwth sensory integrative [SI] dysfucntion). Data were analyzed descriptively. The results demonstrated that (a) normal pre-school-age boys and pre-school-age boys sith SI dysfunctin did not differ with regard to play preference; (b) pre-school-age boys with SI dysfunction scored significantly lower than did their normal peers on three of the four dimensions of the play scale; (c) there was no relationship between play preference and performance for the boys with SI dysfunction and only a moderate relationship for the normal boys. Furthermore, none of the scores of the normal preschoolers fell into the category of high preference, low performance in any area of play, whereas 9% of the scores of the boys with SI dysfunction were associated with this type of play deficit. A greater percentage of scores (22%) of the boys with SI dysfunction fell into the category of low preference, low performance in given play categories; only 4% of the scores of the normal boys fell into this category. Clinical implications and recommendations for further study of play deficits are discussed.
This article offers the opinion that the use of non-directive play therapy is not in itself a sufficient theory for working within child psychiatry. The authors suggest that the added understanding of analytical theory be applied to non-directive play therapy and, combined with the skills of an occupational therapist, will provide a unique style of working. The article does not set out to describe the work of occupational therapists within child, adolescent and family psychiatry, which will be the subject of another paper.