Year: 2014
Type: article
Study design: Clinical Trial
Abstract: Pretend play is an important part of child development associated with constructs of adaptive functioning such as creative thinking and positive affect.Research has demonstrated that interventions aimed at improving play skills can be effective.By targeting the cognitive and affective processes occurring in fantasy play, children's creative potential can theoretically be facilitated.In the current study, a 6-session, pretend play intervention was administered to forty participants, ages 5 to 8 years old, enrolled in a private school for girls.The purpose of the study was to adapt a manualized play intervention so that it could be administered to groups of participants.The main hypothesis was that pretend play skills, creativity and subjective well-being would improve for those children enrolled in the pretend play intervention compared to children in the control group.In groups of four, children were asked to make up stories using a set of toys including animals, people, blocks and props while control groups completed puzzles, coloring sheets and beadwork.The group format added elements of peer modeling, teamwork and socio-dramatic play to the intervention, elements not found in the original individual play intervention.At baseline and outcome, play skills were ix assessed using the Affect in Play Scale, a 5-minute play task measuring the cognitive and affective processes of fantasy play.Creativity was assessed using the Alternate Uses Test (divergent thinking) and a storytelling task.Subjective school well-being was measured using the PANAS-C to assess state positive and negative affect, and the school subtest of the MSLSS-C to assess school satisfaction.Repeated-measures ANOVA analyses indicated significant improvement in organization, imagination and affect expression in play for the intervention group compared to the control group, as well as a significant interaction of time and group for divergent thinking.No other significant group effects emerged for the storytelling or subjective well-being variables.At baseline, pretend play was found to significantly relate to divergent thinking and storytelling, and divergent thinking and storytelling significantly related to each other.Together, these findings suggest that this particular play intervention is promising for children and is feasible within the school setting.
Author: Jessica Hoffmann
Institution: Case Western Reserve University
Language: English
Subfield: Clinical Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2773375002