Developmental Lecture Three - Play Flashcards
- Compare and contrast cognitive versus learning theories in their perspective on play.
What is play?
- A central part of children’s lives - often with their parents, have play as a important central component.
Why do children play?
Different psychological perspectives suggest different reasons!:
- Cognitive theories - suggest that play is about learning social ‘scripts’ relevant to later life, not just elarn represting one object as anothe re..g pretending a banana is a phone. ‘Scripts’ = children playing schools, one being teacher v one being student, this roleplay is developing children’s understanding of that social environment - e.g. being naughty at school = shouting, they learn this from their playing and try out the consequences and see what they are, having the understanding of them in a safe way = could stop children from misbehaving.
Learning theories (i.e. constructivism) - suggest that children use play to learn from experience, suggesting that each of your experiences are like a brick, you are learning/constructing your knowledge from experience. You are constructing your knowledge by playing. (Piaget)... Or to learn to socially self-regulate (Vygotsky) - interested in social experience - argued that play is the place where children have social experiences to construct reality and learning skills such as self-regulation, being able to stop themselves doing something at one particular moment.
Learning theorists look at it as a mean to and end VS cognitive theorists look at it as about building through constructions that you then go on to use
Or: is this just over-intellcuatising - maybe children just play for fun.
- Describe sensorimotoric play and provide real life examples of it.
Sensorimotor play - any act that is about sensory manipulation and experience of objects e.g. tasting, touching - play primarily motivated by exploration, sensing and simple manipulations of objects - simple use of objects, they don’t have meaning - things being used for their sensory properties - closely related to physical/social development
By 6 months (not when it begins, when babies start doing smart stuff e.g. keeping propped up - can reach and grasp for small objects, takes objects to mouth, whatever you give them, they manipulate it in this same way and take it to their mouth, may shake objects (e.g. rattles) to make sound, to do it deliberately - these repetitive behaviours start happening more at 6 months - intentional
By 9 months: joint attention, can shake object in imitation e.g. i shake a rattle, they shake a rattle to mimic/imitate me, also starts playing simple social games - their sensorimotoric play starts looking more social
By 12 months: takes objects to mouths less, know that the object exists when a box is put over it, they wouldn’t know this at 6 months, they would think it has gone. Object permeance - becomes a feature within their play - puts objects in and out of boxes
- Compare and contrast functional versus symbolic pretend play.
Functional pretend play appear first, around the age of 1, overlapping from about 1 1/2 you see this symbolic pretend play.
Pretend play - functional - playful use of a real or miniature object consistent with their function - suing an object in a way that fits its meanings - has a set of meaning associated with it e.g. pretending to drink out of a glass even if it has no water in it
E.g. from 12 months:
attempts to use a hairbrush to brush hair (or teddy) in a way that is meaningful
From 13-14 months:
using miniature objects e.g. pushing a toy car around the floor
Is this ‘real’ pretending? Most (e.g. Leslie, 1987; Karmiloff-Smith, 2005) would argue not. E.g. child could pick up a brush and try and brush their hair because someone else is brushing their hair, imitation or could be pretending to brush teddys hair because of association with the hairbrush?
Pretend play - symbolic
We know a child is doing something that is actually pretend
- Substuiting one object for another e.g. pirate - pretending to use a telephone
- Attributing an imaginary property to an object or a situation - imagining a glass is full, giving a unicorn the glass to drink
- Referring to an absent object or person as if they were present - imagining the unicorn is there
Develops gradually from 18 months
Early symbolic play - examples
Pretend to drink from an empty cup by making slurping noises and saying “ah” when finished. (Segal, 2004) - something imaginary has been accompanied to this cup
Begin to engage in pretend play by using a play spoon to stir in a toy kitchen area. (12–18 months: Lerner and Ciervo, 2003)
Pretend that a banana is a telephone (12–18 months: Lerner and Ciervo, 2003)
- Describe key themes in the development of pretending.
Williams et al, 2001:
Decontextualisation
Increasingly symbolic, less environmental context required, the meaning is consistent with that obejct - for example, eventually knows a spoon is a spoon after it not being in the fake ktichen anumore. The process from where a child goes intially deomnstrating fucntional use of objects in the envrionemtn and conetxt where thwy would frist experiecne them to over time be able to do ti far away.
Decentration
From self-centred activities to situations involving several (often-imaginary) agents, opposite of egocentrism, the process of becoming less egocentric being vissible in play, moving away from just this focus on themselves, e.g. letting other children play with them in their game.
Integration and elaboration - games also become integrated, various aspects being integrated together, Elobarstion - not jsut a pretend act agan and again, e.g. stir then pretend to pour it on a baking tray, acts chained together
Longer and better-organised sequences
Socialisation
From solitary play by themselves to then being able to tolerate someone next to them playing, not playing with them through parallel to then towards cooperative
being able to mutually play together
- Describe socio-dramatic play and provide real life examples of it.
Socio-dramatic play.
30-36 months
Play involves assignment of roles to self and others, although child may not stay in role! Not that long chained level of elaboration that you see in later play
Engage in play involving several steps – a “plan”
Significant use of “meta-communication” (de Haan et al, 2020)
Lots of negotiation – becomes more sophisticated in older children. E.g. playing dogs and vets - you’re the dog, this is a syringe, we are going to use this syringe to inject - communicating about communicating
A foundation for more complex later play, involving imaginary friends/worlds…
Seen as very important in social constructivist developmental psychology (Bodrova, 2013)
E.g. goodies and baddies in the UK culture due to a dominant kind of cultural narratives
