Links Between Preschool Children’s Social Skills and Observed Pretend Play in Outdoor Childcare Environments

As one of the most advanced play forms in childhood, pretend play often demonstrates positive associations with children’s development. However, results from research that examines the association between social skills and pretend play are mixed, especially when the complexity of pretend play is taken into account. Moreover, few studies on pretend play are conducted in outdoor environments; a setting which affords many opportunities for engagement in pretend play and unstructured social interactions. By observing children’s outdoor pretend play, the primary purpose of this study was to investigate the relationships between different types of pretend play and children’s social skills. Twenty-eight children from high quality childcare centers in a southeast suburban area were observed during outdoor free play time. Using a reliable time sampling protocol, each child’s play was observed and recorded for a total of 45 min to an hour over a 2-week time period. Lead teachers rated children’s social skills in the areas of cooperation, self-control, and assertiveness. Results showed high amounts of pretend play behavior overall, and differential relationships between the type of pretend play children engaged in and children’s social skills. Surprisingly, these relationships were not associated with gender. Findings are discussed in light of the value of pretend play to promote social skill development and the potential for outdoor contexts specifically to encourage these play behaviors.     

Through race-colored glasses: Preschoolers’ pretend play and teachers’ ratings of preschooler adjustment

This study investigated relations between preschoolers’ pretend play, examiner-rated adjustment, and teachers’ reports of educational and social adjustment in a large and racially diverse sample. Preschoolers (N = 171; M_age = 49.25 months, SD = 2.76; 89.5% non-White; 50.9% female) completed a standardized assessment of pretend play during a laboratory visit and teachers rated their academic and relational adjustment 3 months later. Interactive effects by child race were evaluated in light of prior suggestions that relations between children's creative expression and teacher-rated adjustment may vary by child race. There were no significant race differences in observers’ ratings of preschoolers’ pretend play, examiners’ ratings of child adjustment, or teachers’ ratings of child adjustment. Imaginative and expressive play features were positively related to examiners’ ratings of child ego-resilience for all children in the laboratory setting. However, child race moderated relations between these same play features and teachers’ ratings of preschooler adjustment in the classroom, even after child age, child IQ, family socioeconomic status, teacher–child racial congruence, teacher familiarity with the child, and child gender were held constant. Among Black preschoolers, imaginative and expressive pretend play features were associated with teachers’ ratings of less school preparedness, less peer acceptance, and more teacher–child conflict, whereas comparable levels of imagination and affect in pretend play were related to positive ratings on these same measures for non-Black children. These results suggest that teachers may ascribe differential meaning to child behaviors as a function of child race. Implications for child development, teacher training, and early education are discussed.     

The Relation Between Toy Gun Play and Children's Aggressive Behavior

To assess the relation between toy gun play and aggression, thirty-six 3- to 5-year-olds were observed in free play in their daycare center and coded for amount of real aggression, pretend aggression, rough-and-tumble play (R & T), and nonaggressive pretend play. Based on a questionnaire completed by the parents, the children were also coded for the amount they played with toy guns in the home, the rated aggressive level of their preferred television programs, the rated aggressive level of their most preferred toys, and amount of parents' physical punishment of the children. Of all children, 56% played with toy guns in the home, most of whom were boys. Multiple regression analyses indicated that amount of parents' punishment strongly predicted real aggression in both boys and girls, and amount of toy gun play strongly predicted real aggression in boys. However, when it came to pretend aggression, aggressive level of children's preferred toys was the strongest predictor, while toy gun play negatively predicted pretend aggression. Toy gun play did not predict nonaggressive pretend play, but parents' punishment negatively predicted nonaggressive pretend play. These results indicate that toy gun play and parental punishment are positively associated with a higher level of real aggression but not pretend aggression. This pattern is discussed in terms of a cuing effect theory versus a cathartic effect theory. It also argues for distinguishing between real and pretend aggression and other forms of play in future studies.     

The evolutionary significance of pretend play: Two-year-olds’ interpretation of behavioral cues

Pretend play begins very early in human life. A key question is why, when figuring out reality is young children’s major developmental task, they engage in its deliberate falsification. A second key question is how children know that pretend events are not real. Here we report three experiments addressing the latter question and providing indirect evidence for speculation on the first question. Children (N = 96) were shown actors eating or pretending to eat from covered bowls, and they had to indicate, on the basis of the actors’ behavioral signs, which actor was pretending to eat or had the real food. Even 24-month-olds could do so when the contents of the bowls were shown before the actions, and even when substitute objects were shown. However, when one of the bowls contained imaginary objects (i.e., was empty), even 30-month-olds could not indicate which actor was pretending. These studies show how the ability to interpret pretending from behavioral cues develops gradually as children’s representational abilities become more free of contextual support. We propose that, from an evolutionary and ontogenetic standpoint, pretend play might serve to heighten children’s sensitivity to social signs. This sensitivity could assist the development of theory of mind, with which social pretend play is associated. In this way, pretend play in humans might serve a similar purpose to play fighting in other species: In both cases, play might sensitize the organism to social signs that will allow for sophisticated coordination of social behavior later in life.     

Relationship between imaginative play and language development in hearing-impaired children

The relationship between imaginative play and language development was investigated in a group of 20 severely and profoundly hearing-impaired children between the ages of 3 and 6. Each child was videotaped in a 60-minute session interacting with the investigator and playing with three sets of toys: a miniature house, barn, and garage. Analysis of the subjects' language revealed that 15 were operating in Brown's (1973) Stage 1, one in Stage 3, and four in Stage 5. Play was analyzed along three dimensions: (a) percentage of time engaged in imaginative play; (b) use of planned pretend; and (c) use of story line. A significant relationship was found between imaginative play and language development. Results revealed no relationship between imaginative play and chronological age. Correspondences were found between language development and use of planned pretend and story line.     

Determinants of Dyadic Scaffolding and Cognitive Outcomes in First Graders

Objective. The purposes of this study were to identify mother, child, and dyadic determinants of effective mother–child collaboration and to determine the impact of this collaboration on children's cognitive development. Design. Ninety-two mother–child dyads from the Massachusetts site of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development participated in a site-specific, home-based instructional task through which they were assessed for scaffolding effectiveness. Cognitive characteristics of both mothers and children, as well as dyadic characteristics from infancy, were examined as predictors of effective dyadic scaffolding when the children were in 1st grade. In addition, concurrent cognitive capabilities of the children were regressed on scaffolding while controlling for earlier cognitive test scores. Results. Mothers' verbal intelligence and children's mental development, as well as shared sensitivity, predicted the effectiveness of scaffolding collaborations, which in turn uniquely predicted cognitive capabilities of the children. Conclusions. Effective mother–child scaffolding is a function of individual mother and child characteristics, as well as the nature of the mother–child relationship; scaffolding predicts children's cognitive outcomes.     

Effect of School Pretend Play on Preschoolers’ Social Competence in Peer Interactions: Gender as a Potential Moderator

This study investigated the moderating effect of gender on the causal relationships between different school play activities (pretend and non-pretend play) and social competence in peer interactions among a sample of Hong Kong children. Participants were 60 Hong Kong preschoolers (mean age = 5.44, 36.67 % female). Children with matched home pretend play time period were randomly assigned to pretend or non-pretend play groups to take part in pretend or non-pretend play activities respectively in the 1-month kindergarten play training. Children’s pre- and post-training social competences were assessed by their teachers. Results revealed a trend that girls who participated in school pretend play tended to be less disruptive during peer interactions after the training than those who participated in non-pretend play, while boys were similarly benefited from the two play activities. The implications for play-related research and children’s social competence development are discussed.     

Development of self-recognition, personal pronoun use, and pretend play during the 2nd year

This study examined the relation of visual self-recognition to personal pronoun use and pretend play. For a longitudinal sample (N=66) at the ages when self-recognition was emerging (15, 18, and 21 months), self-recognition was related to personal pronoun use and pretend play such that children showing self-recognition used more personal pronouns and demonstrated more advanced pretend play than did children not showing self-recognition. The finding of a relation among these measures provides additional evidence that in the middle of the 2nd year of life a metarepresentation of self emerges in the human child.     

Finding the optimal scaffoldings for learners’ epistemological beliefs during ill-structured problem solving

This study investigates how scaffolding type and learners’ epistemological beliefs influence ill-structured problem solving. The independent variables in this study include the type of scaffolding (task-supported, self-monitoring) and the student's epistemological belief level (more advanced, less advanced). The dependent variables include three components of problem-solving skill (problem representation, solution development, monitoring and evaluation). The two-way multivariate analysis of variance results reveal that students in the self-monitoring scaffolding group earned higher scores on problem representation and solution development than those in the task-supported scaffolding group. Students with more advanced epistemological beliefs also earned higher scores on solution development and monitoring and evaluation than did those with less advanced epistemological beliefs. In addition, a significant interaction was found between scaffolding type and epistemological belief level. These findings suggest that students can benefit from self-monitoring scaffolding in web-based problem solving and that different types of scaffolding should be provided according to the student's epistemological belief level.     

Classroom dimensions predict early peer interaction when children are diverse in ethnicity, race, and home language

The purpose of this study was to test a model for predicting preschool-age children's behaviors with peers from dimensions of the classroom and teacher-child relationship quality when the children were from diverse race, ethnic, and home language backgrounds. Eight hundred children, (M = age 63 months, SD = 8.1 months), part of the National Evaluation of Early Head Start, participated in this study just prior to entering kindergarten. We observed children with peers in their classrooms and rated classroom peer group size, affective climate for peer interaction, teacher management of the classroom, and materials for dramatic play. Teachers reported on teacher-child relationship quality. Children from Spanish-speaking homes played similarly in classrooms where Spanish was and was not spoken. After control variables and receptive vocabulary scores were entered into the model, classroom dimensions and teacher-child relationship quality significantly predicted pretend play, anxious-withdrawn, aggressive, and victim of peer aggression behaviors with peers. Children engaged in more pretend play and received lower ratings of being the victim of peer aggression when classroom groups were smaller. When teachers perceived teacher-child relationships as lower in conflict and higher in closeness, children's anxious-withdrawn, aggressive, and victim of aggression ratings were lower. Children's ratings of being the victim of peer aggression were higher when ratings of classroom positive peer climate were lower. Child-teacher ethnic or racial match did not moderate these predictions.     

Language Development Subcontexts in Head Start Classrooms: Distinctive Patterns of Teacher Talk During Free Play,Mealtime, and Book Reading

Research findings. Language development subcontexts within 20 Head Start classrooms were studied by observing teachers' child-directed talk during free play, mealtime, and book reading. In each context, observers coded all child-directed statements, directives, and questions, noted instances of pretend talk and decontextualized talk, and rated the richness and sensitivity-responsiveness of teachers' talk. Rates of child-directed talk were similar across contexts, but the challenging features of teachers' talk varied substantially across contexts: pretend talk occurred almost exclusively during free play, decontextualized talk was most common during mealtime, and ratings of richness were greatest during book reading. Higher rates of pretend talk and decontextualized talk and higher ratings of richness were associated with higher ratings of sensitivity-responsiveness. Rates of child-directed talk did not differ reliably for Lead Teachers and Assistant Teachers. Implications for practice. Professional development efforts may focus productively on helping Head Start teachers to recognize natural opportunities for different types of challenging talk in different classroom contexts. In the majority of classrooms, encouraging teachers to engage in more child-directed talk carries little risk of reducing the quality of sensitive-responsive caregiving. Assistant Teachers play a major role in Head Start classroom language environments and should be included in professional development activities focused on children's language skills.     

Ventriloquism as early literacy practice: making meaning in pretend play

This article discusses how children in New Zealand make meaning in their spontaneous pretend play from kindergarten (four years old) through to their first year of primary school (five years old). The findings discussed here are taken from a wider project investigating children’s storytelling where 12 child participants were video recorded during their everyday storytelling experiences over a three-year period. This article reveals how children’s engagement in pretend play often involves playing out an impromptu storyline where ventriloquism is used to talk objects into life through paralinguistic features such as gesture, gaze and voice prosody. These findings suggest that through the act of ventriloquism in pretend play children learn to engage in complex meaning making activities in playful ways, orally formulating characters and building coherent and systematic storylines that can be identified as early literacy practices.     

Examining How and Why Children in My Transitional Kindergarten Classroom Engage in Pretend Gunplay

This self-study of pretend gunplay in my Transitional Kindergarten (TK) classroom was designed to guide me in not only improving my practice within the classroom, but also informing the development of sound classroom policies related to pretend gun-and-weapons play that balance children's developmental needs with my commitment to peace and conflict resolution. The participants in this study include 17 children in my TK classroom in Northern California, but the focus is on 8 students. Data for this study were collected through brief student interviews, audio-recorded classroom discussions, videotaped play, observations, and photographs, which were then analyzed through first and second cycle coding and grouped into significant patterns and common themes. This study allowed me to recognize the different types of pretend gunplay in my classroom, the types of play that induce conflict versus cooperative play, and the specific social needs of my students that are being met through their pretend gunplay. These findings allow me to respond effectively and critically to the developmental needs of my students while being able to recognize the topics that typically occur in pretend gunplay.     

儿童假扮游戏中的认知技能发展

假扮游戏的出现、发展到成熟伴随儿童的认知发展．儿童需要具备必要的认知技能才能参与假扮游戏,与假扮游戏有关的认知技能主要包括:社会参照、解读意图、分离、符号化假扮、角色扮演等．假扮游戏与儿童认知发展是一个交互作用的过程,作用的起点是假扮行为的出现．     

Structures underpinning pretend play and word production in young hearing children and children with hearing loss

Relationships between pretend play and word production were investigated in 10 hearing (H) and 10 toddlers with hearing loss (D) who attended an auditory/oral early intervention program. All children were videotaped interacting in free play with their hearing primary caregiver at 28, 29, and 30 months of age. Group comparisons were made for the scores for highest and mean levels of pretend play and for the underlying structures of decontextualization, decentration, sequencing, and planning. Relationships with word production were then explored for the two groups separately. Results showed significantly higher levels of pretend play for all dimensions for the hearing children and an association between level of pretend play and word production for the children with hearing loss. Associations between word production and sequencing and planning were found for both groups of children. Word production was associated with decontextualization for the hearing children and with decentration for the children with hearing loss. We discuss theoretical implications of the findings together with implications for intervention with toddlers who have hearing loss.     

Social pretend play in 2-year-olds: Effects of age of partner

The role of the partner in the development of social pretend play was examined in two related studies. In both studies toddler-age children (Study One: n = 16, Study Two: n = 48) played with same-age and 5-year-old partners. In both studies 2-year-olds engaged in more social pretend play with older than with same-age partners. In mixed play sessions, 2-year-olds and 5-year-olds engaged in asymmetrical interaction. However, 5-year-olds used similar social behaviors with same-age and younger partners. In Study two, the 5-year-old partners (n = 32) were asked either to play with or to teach their younger partners. No differences were found in 5-year-old behavior under the two conditions, and younger children did not engage in more complex social pretend play in subsequent play with age-mates.     

Pretend Play Skills and the Child's Theory of Mind

Pretend play has recently been of great interest to researchers studying children's understanding of the mind. One reason for this interest is that pretense seems to require many of the same skills as mental state understanding, and these skills seem to emerge precociously in pretense. Pretend play might be a zone of proximal development, an activity in which children operate at a cognitive level higher than they operate at in nonpretense situations. Alternatively, pretend play might be fool's gold, in that it might appear to be more sophisticated than it really is. This paper first discusses what pretend play is. It then investigates whether pretend play is an area of advanced understanding with reference to 3 skills that are implicated in both pretend play and a theory of mind: the ability to represent one object as two things at once, the ability to see one object as representing another, and the ability to represent mental representations.     

Evolutionary developmental psychology and socio-emotional development

Abstract

Evolutionary developmental psychology is relevant to understanding many aspects of socio-emotional development in infancy, childhood and adolescence. This article focuses on parental investment and paternity certainty, child abuse, grandparenting, and parent-offspring conflict; sibling relationships and theory of mind; children's peer groups, especially dominance, aggression, sex differences and pretend and rough-and-tumble play; and on a model linking early family experiences to peer behaviour, age of puberty and reproductive behaviour. The review illustrates some of the potential of evolutionary developmental psychology in providing a comprehensive framework for understanding many aspects of social behaviour, and of providing testable hypotheses. Evolutionary explanations should be seen as compatible with cultural and environmental explanations, that may provide the proximal mechanisms by which the more distal functions of these behaviours are typically realised in actual developmental process and experience     

Indonesian Children's Play with Their Mothers and Older Siblings

30 Indonesian children were observed and videotaped on 2 separate occasions while playing with toys to promote imaginative play with their mothers and older siblings. Play episodes were examined for level of play with objects, mutual involvement in social and cooperative social pretend play, maternal and sibling play behaviors, and thematic content. Mothers were interviewed about children's play. Results showed that level of object play and mutual involvement in cooperative social pretend play increased with age. Pretend play with objects and cooperative social pretend play were more frequent with older siblings than with mothers. Older siblings were more actively involved in play activities than were mothers. Siblings joined their younger partners' play activities and made comments and suggestions for pretend play. The findings suggest that older siblings can be effective facilitators of pretend play with young children. The results also show how the sociocultural context shapes children's early play behavior with different partners.