2. PLAY
● According to Freud and Erikson, play helps the child
master anxieties and reduce conflicts (Demanachick,
2015).
● Play therapy used to make children feel less threatened
and be more likely to express their true
feelings(Clark,2015, 2016; Demanachick, 2015; Yanof,
2013).
● Piaget (1962) maintained that play advances children’s
cognitive development.
● Vygotsky (1962) highlighted symbolic and make-believe
aspect of play which advances creative thought and
cognitive development.
● Daniel Berlyne (1960) described play as exciting and
pleasurable in itself because it satisfies our exploratory
drive.
● Play enhances language development and
communication skills (Christie & Roskos, 2015; Hirsh-Pasek
& Golinkoff, 2014).
3. TYPES OF PLAY
●Sensorimotor play is behavior by infants to derive pleasure from
exercising their sensorimotor schemes - second quarter of the first year of
life.
●Practice play involves repetition of behavior when new skills are being
learned or when physical or mental mastery and coordination of skills are
required for games or sports - throughout life.
● Pretense/symbolic play occurs when the child transforms aspects of the
physical environment into symbols - increased between 9 and 30 months
of age. Catherine Garvey (2000) and Angeline Lillard (2006, 2015)
emphasize that hidden in young children’s pretend play narratives are
capacities for role taking of social roles, metacognition (thinking about
thinking), testing of the reality-pretense distinction, and numerous
nonegocentric capacities that reveal the remarkable cognitive skills of
young children.
4. TYPES OF PLAY
● Social play involves interaction with peers - increases dramatically
during the preschool years. Social play includes turn taking,
conversations about numerous topics, social games and routines, and
physical play (Sumaroka & Bornstein, 2008). Social play often
involves a high degree of pleasure on the part of the participants
(Sumaroka & Bornstein, 2008).
●Constructive play combines sensorimotor/practice play with
symbolic representation. Constructive play occurs when children
engage in the self-regulated creation of a product or a solution -
frequent in elementary school years
●Games are activities that are engaged in for pleasure and have rules -
reciprocity and taking turns. Often they involve competition.
5. WHAT ARE THE FUNCTIONS OF PLAY IN AN
INDIVIDUAL’S LIFE?
Singer, Golinkoff, and Hirsh-Pasek’s (2006) first book on play was titled:
Play = Learning.
•Among the cognitive benefits of play they described are these skills:
creative, abstract thinking; imagination; attention, concentration, and
persistence; problem-solving; social cognition, empathy, and perspective
taking; language; and mastering new concepts.
•Among the socio-emotional experiences and development they believe
play promotes are enjoyment, relaxation, and self-expression; cooperation,
sharing, and turn-taking; anxiety reduction; and self-confidence.
•With so many positive cognitive and socio-emotional outcomes of play,
clearly it is important that we find more time for play in young children’s
lives (Bruce & others, 2017; Dyson, 2015; Lillard, 2015; Robson, 2017).
