The exploration and/or manipulation of objects and materials, referred to as object-oriented play (OOP), is one of the most prominent activities children engage in during early childhood. Especially within early childhood education, it is important to be able to assess and understand OOP, its developmental trajectory, and developmental value. This…

Although neurotypical children often spend the majority of their time engaged in play activities, children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) can present with substantial delays in the development of play skills, requiring intensive intervention. Although targets for language and basic learning skills are often selected based on the development…

Children first establish the foundations of subsequent social interactions by learning basic toy manipulations skills (Weiss and Harris, 2001). Once the child has established these skills in isolation, they can then be expanded into the symbolic and dramatic levels of play. For children who do not display these foundational toy play skills, the…

The purpose of this qualitative study was to gain understanding of how Midwestern kindergarten teachers use developmentally appropriate play-based practices to support the standards in their classrooms. Five participants were selected based on meeting the criteria of being a kindergarten teacher in a Midwestern school district who incorporates…

This article aims to identify the correlation between early childhood teachers' ability to foster creativity through free play. A screening model is used in the study. The participants comprised 166 teachers of the foundation (early childhood) phase. The 'Teacher Roles in Free Play Scale' and the 'Creativity Fostering Teacher Index Scale'…

Play acts as the source of children's development in the preschool period. Yet, the global pandemic has changed children's play conditions in ways that are not yet fully understood. With movement restrictions, families have struggled to find ways of bringing children together for play. We studied how family day care (FDC) educators across a remote…

Flexible social attention, including visually attending to social interaction partners, coupled with positive affect may facilitate adaptive social functioning. However, most research assessing social attention relies on static computer-based paradigms, overlooking the dynamics of social interactions and limiting understanding of individual…

Childhood states are commonly invoked by adult humans in derisory ways and as put-downs. While infantile and clownish ways of behaving are often met with insult, we argue that these ways of being could instead be seen in terms of their productive potential. Drawing on posthuman and feminist theories and invoking clownish qualities of Haraway's Bag…

This paper reports on a design oriented study conducted in close collaboration between two researchers and three preschool teachers. Within this study, a play-based interview script was designed in accordance with theoretically driven principles. Based on this script, the preschool teachers conducted interviews with children from three preschools…

This paper reports on the findings from a study investigating the provision of outdoor loose parts materials for upper primary school aged children. Conducted in Queensland, Australia, the study focused on loose parts materials as cultural tools, following the sociocultural argument that tools mediate activity and outcomes. The findings suggest…

Pretend play is an important, universal activity of early childhood, but research to date contains multiple inconsistencies in definitions and measurement of pretend play. To begin to resolve this issue, we conducted a first study of the multiple different behaviors of pretend play in the preschool years (3-5 years), and investigated their…

The writing of three attainment groups of 10- to 11-year-old children was used to investigate their use of ludic (playful) punctuation in the composition of an advertisement for a new dessert. Framed within a consideration of language play in general, and children's use of punctuation in particular, the investigation revealed the ways in which…

This study explored the connection between children's language skills, creativity, and play. The participants were 151 (76 boys and 75 girls) primarily middle-income, European American children. Ages ranged from 4 to 6 years. This project employed mixed methods approaches. Children engaged in several tasks. These included: creating a story about…

The authors investigate the personality traits of parents and children and their significant influence on the behavior of the other. Using the HEXACO model of personality, the authors examine the behavior of one hundred parent-child dyads on a playground to understand broader parent-child relationships. Their analyses reveal two opposed types of…

Purpose: This case series documents developmental changes over time and in response to a novel intervention, Sitting Together and Reaching to Play (START-Play), in children with early-life seizures. Methods: Thirteen children with early-life seizures were included from a subset of participants in the START-Play multisite, randomized controlled…