What is play?
The actives that are pursued for their own sake, with no motivation other than the enjoyment they bring
What is play essential for/aids in developing?
Social skills, intelligence, creativity & problem solving
Describe why play is important to survival (rats).
If there are two groups of rats playing, and you stop one group of rats from playing, but allow them in another, but then scare them. They will both hide, but they will eventually come out and test the environment again, whereas the rats who never played will never come out.
What did early humans use play for?
To overome innate tendencies for aggression and dominance, this helped support a cooperative way of life.
What does social play counteract tendencies towards?
Greed and arrogance whilst showing concern for feelings and wellbeing of others.
What are the suggested benefits of play?
- Contribues to a healthy brain development
- Promotes attention and academic performance
- Supports creative problem solving
- Correlates with self-regulation
- Encourages exploration
What evidence is there that play improves memory, cognitive performance and situates the growth of the cerebral cortex?
- Rats raised in ‘enriched’ environment had thicker cortexes than those raised in isolation
- ‘Enriched’ rates made fewer errors on tasks of spatial awareness and could go through mazes more quickly
What evidence is there that in human infants playful activity makes a positive difference in brain development?
Children who don’t play much develop brains that are 20% - 30% smaller than what they should be for their normal age
What % are children’s brains smaller said be for their age if they don’t play?
20% - 30%
What type of evidence that early play behaviour predict later academic attainment?
Longitudinal
Give an example of a type of play that can be used to predict later school attainment grades.
The complexity of a children block play at age 4 was related to their maths achievements in high school
Give an example of a type of play that can be used to predict later school attainment grades.
The complexity of a children block play at age 4 was related to their maths achievements in high school, this was after being controlled for gender and IQ!
What type of break is there with evidence suggesting that it maximises attention and performance for primary school children?
Playful
Explain some of the benefits of having playful breaks in primary school children.
- More important for boys
- Gives an opportunity for movement which reduces fidgeting and maximises attention for class
- PE is not a substitution, they need to do it without instruction
What evidence is there to support why Chinese and Japanese children have a higher rate of academic achievement to American children.
- Intesene concentration/attention which could be related to the amount of opportunities for play they have (they have a 10-15m break for ever 40-45m class)
- American schools only have 2 recesses a day
What is a convergent problem?
There is only one correct solution
What is a divergent problem?
No single correct solution, multiple correct ones
What is a divergent problem?
No single correct solution, multiple correct ones
Describe a study that shows play supports problem solving within children.
- Preschoolers given either convergent (puzzle pieces) or divergent (blocks) activity
- Each group was then given a battery of problem solving tasks
- Children that were given the divergent materials were better at soling the divergent problems
Why were the divergent control group of children better at solving the divergent problems?
- More flexible and unique
- When solving convergent tasks, it was more flexible to abandoned ineffective techniques
What may ‘pretend play’ improve?
Self-regulation & working memory
What identifiable stages does early play follow?
- Exploratory play
- Pretend play (child centred)
- Pretend play (other centred)
- Combinatorial play
- Symbolic play
What is combinatorial play?
Onset of word combinations
What is symbolic play?
Onset of multi-word utterances
