Notes the limited usefulness of Mulligan's book for student care-providers; its strengths lie in usability for students and instructors; its encouragement of care providers to be reflective, responsive professionals; and in the scope of topics discussed. Examines each book chapter in terms of usefulness for assisting care providers in assuming…

Used a Partially Ordered Scaling of Items method to analyze block construction play in a replication of Innes and King-Shaw's 1985 study. Found several developmental pathways for block play, illustrating the web-like nature of conceptual development. Results suggest a contextual developmental approach to better acknowledge individual diversity in…

Describes the new "basic" preschool program which focuses on enhancing, rather than accelerating, all children's development and enhancing health care. Centered upon Vygotsky's theory of development, such preschool programs focus on play as the leading activity of preschool children, organize the child's material environment, and thereby…

Study results with 82 preschool children show that mothers' and fathers' emotion socialization strategies were different and in some cases differed with the child's gender, and that these reported emotion socialization practices were differentially related to children's behavior during peer play. (SLD)

Focuses on the impact of severe visual impairment on the development of play skills that facilitate concept development and discusses interventions that can enhance play experiences for infants and young children with severe visual impairments. Strategies encourage intrinsic motivation, spontaneity, active engagement, positive effect,…

Three groups of 10 children matched on verbal mental age (either with autism, with Down syndrome, or normally developing) attempted to imitate single pretend acts and a series of pretend acts that formed a script. Although children with autism were best on the single-act imitation, they demonstrated specific difficulties on the script imitation.…

Tested 2,400 three- to five-year olds for cognitive style and observed their play behaviors. Repeated measures multivariate analysis indicated that field-independent children engaged in more play than did field-dependent children. Significant interaction was found for age, cognitive style, and play behaviors. Older field-independent children…

Discusses creativity, play, and nonconformity in children, including the illusion of thought disorder or abnormality, and aspects of everyday creativity, health, and survival. Describes creative divergence, chaotic amplification, the evolution of information, and primitive cognitive processes. Concludes with a discussion of cognitive styles,…

This retrospective study examined play memories from childhood to adulthood of 478 university students between ages 20 and 62 as exhibited in drawings of play memories and questionnaire responses. The study focused on the role of the physical environment and place identity in play memories and individual identity development. Findings showed that…

Examines possible cultural and socioeconomic status (SES) differences in the type, frequency, and complexity of 4- and 5-year-old American and Chinese children's everyday mathematical activities during free play. Results showed neither any differences between the types of mathematical activity American and Chinese children exhibit, nor in the…

Used the Activity Apperception Story Procedure to elicit perceptions of play, work, and learning from 3- to 6-year-olds. Found that children could distinguish play/work and learning/not learning using photographs. While children attended to anticipated cues for justifying their classification of photos, the justification data suggested that the…

This study examined whether 4- to 8-year-olds considered knowledge prerequisites for pretending and drawing. Children were asked if an artist (actor) who did not know what something was, yet whose drawing (behavior) resembled it, was actually drawing it (pretending to be it). Children performed similarly on pretending and drawing questions.…

Examines young children's responses to and understanding of death. Discusses children's concepts of death; how their grief process differs from that of adults; stages of grief; factors affecting grief responses; acceptance of children's grief response; support for grieving children, especially funeral services and counseling; and preparing and…

Advocates hand making games to save money, and tailoring them to meet individual children's needs, introduce new concepts, develop children's interests, and reinforce curriculum concepts. Provides guidelines for identifying goals and creating self-directing games. Includes specific game ideas and supply lists for a variety of matching, board,…

Identifies four dominant strands in the recent literature on adults and children developing play together: socio-cultural, adversarial, child development, and nomad-academic. Explores each strand and analyzes areas of agreement and disagreement to see if any reconciliations can be made across differences. Asserts that each strand is important in…