Young Children's Play

Development, Disabilities, and Diversity

Jeffrey Trawick-Smith

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9780429513565
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Bildung
• Subtopic: Frühkindliche Bildung

Young Children's Play: Development, Disabilities, and Diversity is an accessible, comprehensive introduction to play and development from birth to age 8 years that introduces readers to various play types and strategies and helps them determine when intervention might be needed. Skillfully addressing both typically developing children and those with special needs in a single volume, this book covers dramatic play, blocks, games, motor play, artistic play, and non-traditional play forms, such as humor, rough and tumble play, and more.

Designed to support contemporary classrooms, this text deliberately interweaves practical strategies for understanding and supporting the play of children with specific disabilities (e.g. autism, Down syndrome, or physically challenging conditions) and those of diverse cultural backgrounds into every chapter. In sections divided by age group, Trawick-Smith explores strategies for engaging children with specific special needs, multicultural backgrounds, and incorporating adult–child play and play intervention. Emphasizing diversity in play behaviors, each chapter includes vignettes featuring children's play and teacher interactions in classrooms to illustrate core concepts in action.

Filled with research-based applications for professional practice, this text is an essential resource for students of early childhood and special education, as well as teachers and coaches supporting early grades or inclusive classrooms.

Chapter 1

What Is Play and Why Is It Important?

This is a book about young children’s play, birth to age 8 years. It describes the development of play and how it varies for children with disabilities and for those of diverse cultural backgrounds. It offers strategies to teachers, child care providers, home visitors, and other professionals to support the play of all children. A major theme of these chapters is that all children play in ways that are beneficial to their development with the support of adults and peers.

Play is that active, joyful way children choose to spend their time when they are not guided directly by adults. It is also an important way that children—even those of different backgrounds and with disabilities—connect with each other. The following vignette illustrates this:

Tamara, Analilia, and Lawanda are planning a party for Elsa, a movie character, in the dramatic play center of their Head Start classroom. Analilia’s family just moved to the United States from Mexico and she speaks very little English. Tamara, who is Euro-American, speaks only English. Lawanda, also an English speaker, has Down syndrome. Their teacher, Ms. Sanchez, watches in amazement as this diverse trio plays in remarkable harmony.

“Elsa’s coming soon, like 4 o’clock, because it’s her birthday,” Tamara says, “so we need to bake pies. Lots and lots of pies with those … what are they? … sprinkle things.”

“Pies?” Analilia says, showing brief confusion. “Tortas?” she repeats in her own language. She takes an empty pie tin out of a toy oven. “Es muy caliente,” she says, waving a hand over the pretend pie as if trying to cool it. “Caliente,” she says again.

“Honey,” Tamara responds in a very adult tone, her hands on her hips. “Sometimes I just don’t understand you. Now let’s make those pies as quick as a wink.” Tamara and Analilia begin pouring and mixing pretend ingredients in pie pans.

Lawanda, who has been watching, picks up a toy pan and begins a pouring and stirring motion, copying her peers. After a moment, she puts the dish into the toy oven, quickly removes it, then puts it back in, laughing.

“Good, Lawanda, that’s the ticket,” Tamara says, still as an adult. “You’re making more. And we need some lemon pies, okay? With sprinkles.”

Lawanda pauses a moment and looks at Tamara, then continues moving the toy pan in and out of the oven.

“And let’s put them on the table when they’re done, see?” Tamara says, placing a dish on the table where the party will be held. Analilia follows her lead, putting out more pans and plates, then turns to Lawanda. “Aqui, Lawanda,” she says, pointing to the table. Lawanda smiles and copies her, placing dishes on the table. The three then sit down with a doll, who is obviously the guest of honor, and pretend to eat pies right out of the pans.

These children—so different in their abilities and backgrounds—are playing together. Play is what allows them to communicate, enjoy being together, and construct a shared imaginary world. This vignette illustrates what countless research studies have indicated: Play is vital to the positive development of all children, including those with disabilities (Graham, Nye, Mandy, Clarke, & Morriss‐Roberts, 2018).

Definition of Play

What is play? Several pioneering researchers have developed a formal definition (Bateson, 1972; Garvey, 1990; Rubin, Fein, & Vandenberg, 1983):

Play is an activity which is:

1. Self-chosen: To be considered play, an activity must be chosen by the child, not assigned or directed by an adult. Play can be influenced by the suggestions of others. Peers can offer suggestions (e.g., “Let’s say you’re the firefighter and need to save me.”); so can adults (e.g., “Is the baby crying? I wonder if she needs a doctor.”). But a child must choose to engage in a behavior for it to be considered play.
2. Non-literal: To be play, a behavior must be distinct from serious, important, adult-regulated life. All players understand that thoughts and actions in play are not completely real. When a child in play says, “There’s a tornado coming!” all other children know that this is not really happening. A game can be non-literal if children (and adults) do not view the outcome as important. In play, winners and losers do not matter very much.
3. Intrinsically motivated: To be play, a behavior must be motivated by children’s own desires, interests, needs, feelings, or curiosities. Play comes from within. A 7-year-old who stands at the top of a climber and calls out, “I climbed up the tower of doom!” is not doing so to get attention or praise. She does this for the thrill of taking a risk. Any activity that is performed to please adults, earn stickers or rewards, or get attention—no matter how playful it seems—is not considered play.
4. Active: To be play, a behavior must be active. Simply standing near peers who are playing, without any involvement, is not true play. Physical action is one sign of play. But a child who is playing can also be mentally active. A child who is quietly creating a structure with table blocks is playing, because her mind is active, even if her body is not.
5. Process-oriented: In play, a child focuses on the experience itself, not some end goal. A good example is a child who creates a finger painting. He adds many different colors until the work becomes a brownish smear. He then leaves the table, uninterested in the final product. Certainly, children can be proud of their play (e.g., “Look at my block building! Quick, take a picture of it!”). But the focus of play is on the activity itself, not how it comes out.
6. Emotionally meaningful: To be play, a behavior must include feelings that are meaningful to the child. In most cases these feelings are positive, even joyful. A child who is twirling an egg beater at the water play table, until water splashes on his peers, is obviously experiencing delight (although perhaps his peers are not). But there are other examples of how play includes feelings that are not positive, but are still meaningful. A child who is to have surgery may give a stuffed animal injections in a pretend hospital play center. Clearly, his emotions are not positive. Yet his feelings are very meaningful. He is gaining feelings of control over his anxieties. In play children experience all kinds of important, personal feelings.

Theories about the Importance of Play

For many centuries, philosophers have reflected on why play is so important for children’s development. The various benefits of play that are proposed by these scholars are illustrated in the following vignette:

Himani has recently moved to the United States from India. She approaches a peer, Rachel, in the dramatic play center, which has been arranged into a make-believe airport. Rachel immediately goes behind a pretend ticket counter and says, in an adult voice, “Where do you want to fly on the plane today?”

“Oh, Mumbai, to see my grandmother,” Himani answers. “Can you to take a plane there?”

“Mumbai?” Rachel says, struggling over the word. “No, you need to fly to a city. Some place where there’s an airport.”

“Mumbai is a city. It’s in India,” Himani says.

“Indiana!”

“No, India,” Himani repeats. “I want to fly to India. It’s across the ocean.”

“Oh, you need some tickets to do that,” Rachel says. She begins to write on a slip of paper, using the letters of her name. “This ticket goes to Indiana.”

“Mumbai. India,” Himani says. “Not Indiana.”

“Let’s say it goes to Indiana first, then to India. To … what is it?” Rachel says.

“Mumbai. I can write it.” Himani takes the slip of paper and writes an m and some other random letters on it, then hands it back to Rachel.

“Okay, Mrs. Brown,” Rachel says, adding a few more marks on the ticket, then handing it over to Himani. “Let’s say that’s your name.”

“Mrs. Brown?” Himani says, laughing.

“Let’s say it’s your pretend name. And you don’t know where to go to get on the plane, alright? So, I have to show you.” Rachel leads Himani over to a row of chairs that represents a gate area. “You wait here till the plane goes. It goes very soon.”

“No,” Himani says. “At the airport you always have to wait and wait and wait.”

Himani and Rachel obviously benefit from these play activities. What are some of the social skills they are learning? How does this play support their language and literacy? Their creativity? What new knowledge do they gain from each other as they play? Several prominent theories of play have been formulated to answer these questions. A list of these and some of their practical applications are presented in Table 1.1.

Table 1.1 Theories of play, their authors, key ideas, and practical applications

Theory	Author	Key Ideas	Practical Application
Surplus Energy Theory	Schiller	Play is a “release valve” that allows children to let off steam.	After a long math lesson, a teacher sees that her first-grade students are wiggly, inattentive, and seem to have lots of pent up energy. She sends them out onto the playground to run and play in order to release all that stored up vigor.
Recreation Theory	Lazarus	After hard work in the classroom, children need to “recharge their batteries.” Play restores spent energy.	During an overly long shared reading experience in a preschool, children begin to look tired. A free play time is provided to rejuvenate and reenergize the children.
Practice Theory	Groos	As children play, they practice and refine many of the adult skills they will need later in life.	A toddler teacher provides a housekeeping center with family-related props so children can play out the roles of mothers, fathers, or other family members. She facilitates play so that both boys and girls practice holding, feeding, and nurturing “children”—a variety of dolls and puppets.
Psychoanalytic Theory	Freud, Erikson, Axeline	As children play, they identify and overcome anxieties and fears.	A preschool teacher sets up a make-believe hospital because one of her students will soon have surgery. This setting will allow this child, and others, to play out their anxieties and master them.
Cognitive Theory	Piaget	Play is a way that children recreate important events in their lives, so it becomes a window for observing their intellectual development—particularly their symbolic thinking.	A kindergarten teacher assesses her students’ thinking by observing their interactions in a make-believe grocery store. She notes the degree to which each child understands the roles of grocery employees and shoppers and how well they are able to use symbols—make-believe actions, roles, or objects to stand for things that are not present.
Sociocultural Theory	Vygotsky	Play encourages children to think and behave in their most mature ways. When pretending to be adults, children learn important skills and behaviors.	A second-grade teacher creates a make-believe weather station in the classroom and encourages children to pretend to be meteorologists. She notes how conscientious and mature the children are as they carry out roles in serious, adult-like ways.
Play Communication Theory	Bateson	When children are playing, they must use communication skills—verbal and nonverbal—...