Surveyed 147 11-year-olds about their reasons for playing computer games. Most played for fun, for a challenge, and because their friends did. For most adolescents, computer game playing is a fairly absorbing and harmless activity, but for a few it poses problems when game playing consumes too much time. (SLD)

Explored the effectiveness of an intervention program designed by the researcher to enhance playfulness, using sensorial stimulation. Found that the effectiveness of the playfulness training interventions is an important theoretical result that provides support for a model of teaching and learning that includes the enhancement of playfulness.…

Argues that sociodramatic play in early childhood education provides children with developmental gains in social, emotional, cognitive, intellectual, language, and creative spheres. Stresses the importance of proper teacher education and practice of classroom sociodramatic play. Summarizes survey of preschool and kindergarten teachers regarding…

Joint attention and topic initiation in caregiver-child interactions were explored in relation to language gains of 28 children with Down syndrome (DS) and 17 typical children. DS caregivers spent more time in joint attention than controls. Receptive language gains were associated with caregivers maintaining attention to child-selected toys and…

Describes CHILD-PAC (Children's Hand-on Integrated Learning Discoveries--Parents as Co-Partners), a take-home learning center developed for infants and toddlers with disabilities and their parents to promote positive, interactive parent-child learning and playing. Three different CHILD-PACs designed to turn potentially difficult interaction times…

Discusses ideas from Vygotsky, Leont'ev and Bakhtin to show how fantasy play acts as its own zone of proximal development that contributes to the development of symbolic mediation, the appropriation of social roles and symbols, and the preschool child's preparation for elementary school. (JPB)

Tabulated the frequencies of dyadic and group interactions in single-sex playgroups of 4- and 6-year-olds. Found that boys and girls at both ages engaged in similar frequencies but in different patterns of dyadic interactions. Only 6-year-old boys interacted in groups. (BC)

Illustrates how many teacher-child interactions within the early childhood classroom involve improvisation within an ongoing collaboration to create a new, emergent scene. Describes characteristics of improvisation, including being spontaneous, using everything, giving and receiving offers, and creating collectively. Asserts that viewing classroom…

This article discusses teaching play skills to children with autism. Factors considered include developmental appropriateness, language development, peer involvement, motivational techniques, and setting and intervention methods. Methods for teaching play skills are then reviewed, including script training, peer trainers, and pivotal response…

Draws on current research to advocate the importance of children's need for physical activity and the benefits of teaming literature with movement and dramatic play. Focuses on: (1) brain research on movement; (2) poems and stories that highlight movement; and (3) movement and imagination. Contains 22 references and lists 39 children's books. (SD)

Case studies of three kindergarten students with social difficulties illustrate an intervention program emphasizing a sequential peer-entry hierarchy in which children move from low-risk strategies to high-risk strategies and use props to facilitate the production of high-risk verbal statements. Increases were found in use of props and verbal…

Presents a study that compared the effects of social and isolate toys as setting events for the social interaction of two preschool special needs children within an approximated regular preschool environment setting. Reports there was no difference found between social and isolate toys. Includes references. (CMK)

Based on fieldwork with first-graders in two racially mixed U.S. elementary schools, this article draws from Black feminist theory to examine intersections between gender and racialized ethnicity, especially in the experiences of African American girls. Findings suggest that racial positioning and gender of the African American girls held…

Explores the tension between formal and nonformal approaches to preschool education in India, through discussion of the preschool program of the Government of India's Integrated Child Development Services that targets disadvantaged children and private nursery schools operating on a commercial basis. Asserts that although a nonformal approach is…

This article argues that non-directive play therapy offers an approach that is well suited to addressing adolescent concerns. The argument is illustrated by two accounts of therapy that show how a more traditional non-directive counseling approach was combined with play therapy by the adolescents themselves, allowing exploration of emotional…