6533b86ffe1ef96bd12cdde6
RESEARCH PRODUCT
Developmental trends in children's pretend play.
Paula Lyytinensubject
Analysis of VarianceInjury controlAccident preventionPublic Health Environmental and Occupational HealthAge FactorsPoison controlHuman factors and ergonomicsSuicide preventionDevelopmental psychologyPlay and PlaythingsChild DevelopmentAge groupsChild PreschoolPediatrics Perinatology and Child HealthInjury preventionDevelopmental and Educational PsychologyImaginationHumansPsychologyChildCompetence (human resources)Languagedescription
The developmental trends in pretend play were investigated in children 2-6 years of age (18 in each of five age groups) by examining changes in pretend action and speech separately. Play behaviour was assessed by using a selected set of Duplo Lego toys. Interest focused on occurrence of decentration, decontextualization and integration at different age levels. The proportions of decentred and decontextualized acts, action integrations and play themes, increased linearly with age. Changes in substitutive and inventive actions were, however, more minor than expected. Single-scheme combinations did not reveal any essential aspect of the development of children's symbolic competence. In this sense, multischeme combinations were more important in revealing the children's way of organizing toy material. Linear age trends were not found for language measures. The use of decentred utterances, language integrations and linguistically expressed themes were individual-specific rather than age-related. Issues for studying pretend play in language-impaired groups are also suggested. Language: en
| year | journal | country | edition | language |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1991-01-01 | Child: care, health and development |