The guide was developed as part of Project Prepare, a demonstration program designed to teach disadvantaged parents adult basic education skills and to show these parents how and what to teach their preschool children. It contains activities, advice, and resources for parents. All materials pertain to creative play for preschoolers that develop…

This book lists procedures, materials, special problems, and variations for playing 54 games designed to help children use their thinking abilities in play. The games presented were designed primarily for use in school with children aged 5-9. They give practice in such skills as planning, drawing inferences, seeing things from other points of…

Analyzes and compares the exploration, play, and problem-solving activities of typically developing (average) and at-risk infants when they manipulate novel objects. (BB)

Distributed by the U.S. Departments of Agriculture, Education, and Health and Human Services, this Spanish-language pamphlet provides parents with information and advice about their infants in the seventh month of life. Following a brief description of developmental characteristics at this age, the pamphlet offers advice on a variety of topics,…

This book provides 250 games and activities designed to help infants to 8-year-olds with all types of disabilities grow through play. Many activities come with special adaptations for children with physical, visual, hearing, emotional, and cognitive impairments. Each chapter focuses on a particular "world" or activity theme. Topics of individual…

When administered to 34 infants with handicaps, Bayley Scale mental age scores were an average of 2.1 months higher than Estimated Developmental Ages (EDA's) calculated from the Uzgiris and Hunt Scales. The EDA's were significantly and positively related to Bayley mental age, and sensorimotor play emerged as the best single correlate. (Author/JDD)

Examined social and cognitive play behaviors of preschool children in comparison to tests of convergent and divergent thinking. High levels of nonsocial activity were associated with low scores on the convergent thinking measure. There were negative relationships between nonsocial play and divergent thinking. (GLR)

Comments on Nicolopoulou's article in this issue on the idea that play is an inherently social and cultural cognitive childhood activity. Emphasizes the importance of cultural variation of play for research and education. (BB)

This article can help teachers and directors become eloquent and effective advocates of play-based early learning environments. It defines play and play policy and discusses distinct research areas that support play policy and practice for physical, cognitive, social, and emotional development within diverse early childhood settings. Also…

This paper presents a review of the literature on toy play in infancy and early childhood, with an emphasis on both normal development and special considerations for young children with disabilities. Specifically, it describes children's encounters with toys within a developmental framework, identifies characteristics of the child and aspects of…

Relationships between mothers' behaviors and (1) their children's verbal and nonverbal cognitive functioning, (2) their children's level of play, and (3) mothers' perceptions of their children's task motivation were investigated. Forty-four mothers and their preschool children from a wide range of socioeconomic backgrounds participated in the…

Reports a series of studies conducted to investigate possible differences in the exploratory manipulation and play behavior of human infants 7-1/2- 11-1/2 months of age as a function of the attributes of the stimulus, the familiarity of the subject with the stimuli, the age and sex of the infants, and individual differences. (Author/CS)

The manual presents an Individualized Education Program development guide for working with special education preschoolers. Goals, objectives, and activities are specified in six major areas: (1) speech and language skills (expressive skills, comprehension skills, imitation of non-speech vocalizations, sorting by category; (2) self help skills…

This paper discusses the meaning and formation of children's play in order to (1) deepen understanding and respect for what play is, (2) demonstrate how young children cannot thrive or survive without play, and (3) give a common framework for interpreting and deriving meaning from the play behavior that occurs in the daily lives of young children.…

This paper reviews and comments on the ways that thought and feeling, cognition and affect, have been balanced in early childhood education at various periods in the last half century. The relationship between educators and psychologists is discussed, and a closer collaboration of the two encouraged. The cognitive-affective interaction view is…