Do you enjoy playing with your child?
Do you know how to play with your child so that they benefit the most from the play?
Do you know the expected play level of your child compared to their peers?
Play has been called “the work of children” because it is through play that children learn how to interact in their environment, discover their interests, and acquire cognitive, motor, speech, language, and social-emotional skills (Ginsburg, 2007). Through various types of play, children learn to discover, create, and problem solve in a safe, caring environment. As children grow and mature, their play skills also change, allowing for the development of new skills that are more varied and complex. However, children with language delay often presents with a delay in play skills. From research, we see a strong correlation between play and language development. When children engage in play activities, they have an opportunity to facilitate and reinforce the growth of their skills across cognitive, physical, social, and emotional well-being. Hence, it is important for the child to 'learn to play'.
What is important about play?
Play is a highly complex behavior. Out of all play skills, pretend play (also known as dramatic play or role play) is considered the highest of the play ability levels. Children need an understanding of how an object can be used, then they can attribute meanings to it.
Pretend play is critical for developing oral language. Researchers discovered that children engaged in pretend play often use higher forms of language than they would use in normal situations (Han & Buell, 2021). This makes sense because they are pretending to be someone else, oftentimes, adults.
Psychologist Jerome Bruner found that “the most complicated grammatical and pragmatic forms of language appear first in play activity.(Burner, 1983)” This is because the pretend situation stimulates kids’ language development.
What is pretend play?
Play is more than just rolling a toy car’s wheels or crashing it with other toys, it can become pretending to go for a ride, and meet other animals for a picnic. When a child pretends, they are adding meaning to what they are playing.
According to Stagnitti, pretend play skill is linked with Social Interaction, Problem- Solving, Creativity, Metacognition and metacommunication, Self-Regulation, Theory of Mind, Representational thinking, Narrative and Emotional Management in Play.
In some cases when teachers or therapists advise parents to hold back their children for preschool, it is commonly the case that the children cannot engage in play and take longer to understand social situations, often those children also have lower language ability.
Learn to Play Therapy and the assessment can tell exactly why the children need to be held back for another year and know exactly what needs to be strengthened just to consolidate their play skills.
References
Ginsburg, K. R. (2007). The importance of play in promoting healthy child development and maintaining strong parent-child bonds. Pediatrics, 119(1), 182-191.
Han, M., Moore, N., Vukelich, C., & Buell, M. (2010) Does Play Make a Difference?: How play intervention affects the vocabulary learning of at-risk preschoolers, American Journal of Play. 3(1), 82-105. http://www.journalofplay.org/issues/151/155-does-play-make-difference
Bruner, J. (1983). Play, thought, and language. Peabody Journal of Education, 60(3), 60-69.
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