THE NEED FOR PRETEND PLAY IN CHILD DEVELOPMENT

Pretend play or make-believe play (the acting out of stories which involve multiple perspectives and the playful manipulation of ideas and emotions) reflects a critical feature of the child’s cognitive and social development. The values of suchimaginative play as a vital component to the normal development of a child.

Studies have demonstrated cognitive benefits such as increases in language usageincluding subjunctives, future tenses, and  adjectives.

Psychologist Sandra Russ (2004) identified a number of different cognitive and affective processes that are associated with pretend play. Her research dealing with play involves  fantasy, make-believe, symbolism, organization, cognitive integration of seemingly separate content, and divergent thinking (the ability to come up with many  different ideas, story themes, and symbols). Pretend play allows the expression of both positive and negative feelings, and the modulation of affect, the ability to integrate emotion with cognition (Jent, Niec, & Baker, 2011; Seja, & Russ, 1999; Slade and Wolf, 1999).

The research reviewed by Berk, Mann & Ogan, (2006) and Hirsh-Pasek, Golinkoff, Berk, & Singer (2009) suggest that make-believe games are forerunners of the important capacity for forms of self-regulation including reduced aggression, delay of gratification, civility, and empathy. When children use toys to  introduce possible scenarios or friends, the representation of multiple perspectives occurs naturally. Taking on different roles allows children the unique opportunity to learn social skills such as communication, problem solving, and empathy (Hughes, 1999).

An important  benefit of early pretend play may be its enhancement of the child’s capacity for cognitive flexibility and, ultimately, creativity (Russ, 2004; Singer & Singer, 2005). Russ, for example, in longitudinal  studies, found that early imaginative play was associated with increased creative performance years later (Russ, 2004; Russ, & Fiorelli,  2010).
Research has demonstrated that parents who talk to their children regularly explaining features about nature and social issues, or who read or tell stories at bedtime seem to be most likely to foster pretend play (Shmukler  1981; Singer & Singer  2005).

A school atmosphere in which pretend games are encouraged, or even just tolerated in the curriculum or recess play of children has also been shown to  lead  to  even greater amounts of imaginativeness and enhanced curiosity, and  to learning skills in preschoolers or early school-agers (Ashiabi , 2007; Singer and Lythcott 2004) . Indeed, educators are using pretend games to teach math and reading (Clements, & Sarama, 2009; Ginsburg, 2006).

In the initial evaluation of the program kindergarten children of low-SES parents who participated in the intervention showed significant gains on an academic readiness assessment than those whose parents did not participate. Modest improvements were found in subcomponents of the test, including vocabulary, knowledge about nature, general information knowledge, and knowledge about manners.


Teachers encourage complex make-believe play, guiding children in jointly planning of play scenarios before enacting them. Teachers also lead rule-switching games in which regular movement patterns shift often, requiring flexibility of attention.

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