No description available.

No description available.

Arising out of a concern for the perceived devaluing of social pretend play in both formal early-years educational environments in particular and in wider western society as a whole, this research seeks to identify and categorise some of the potential developmental benefits of this kind of play activity. It locates and describes five areas of development in particular within which sociodramatic play is seen as having an especially positive effect; these are – cognition, linguistic development, social understanding, identity construction/emotional and moral development, and humour/pleasure. Some of the interconnections and overlaps between these various areas of development are also explored. The research adopts an essentially “naturalistic” approach – collecting, collating and analysing fundamentally qualitative data. It seeks to describe the sociodramatic play of four and five year olds within formal educational settings using both video and audio recordings, as well as semi-structured interviews with some of the relevant personnel. The report also endeavours to theorise about certain elements of social pretend play utilising the five areas of development noted above to help structure and inform its analysis. This work seeks to contribute to an “agenda of concern” about the downgrading of social pretend play, concluding that this kind of activity does assist development in the cognitive, linguistic, emotional, moral and social domains.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

It is well established that Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) are characterised by impairments in social interaction, communication and imagination and that impaired imagination is associated with repetitive behaviours (Wing & Gould, 1979). Although this view has influenced research and clinical practice for more than 25 years, the connection between imagination and repetitive behaviour has been completely unexplored in research and not been fully recognised by International Classification of Diseases-10 (ICD-10, 1993; World Health Organization, 1994) criteria for autism. The purpose of this thesis was to examine associations between imagination and repetitive behaviour and to develop two new methods to assess these abilities. A review of the literature revealed that research on repetitive behaviours was limited and that while extensive research had been carried out on symbolic play in autism developmental considerations were lacking with research focusing instead upon the autistic nature of play i.e. its rigidity and flexibility. In order to first obtain a range of information about the association between these two abilities, a parent report questionnaire (Activities and Play Questionnaire-Revised) was developed and tested in a study of 141 typically developing children and children with ASD aged 2 to 8-years old. Results showed that children with ASD had more repetitive behaviours and less symbolic play than children of typical development (TD). Symbolic play in children with ASD was predicted by both expressive language ability and level of repetitive behaviours while symbolic play was predicted only by expressive language ability in TD children. As the questionnaire method had limitations in its ability to fully test language and symbolic play, observational methods were used in subsequent studies. The repetitive behaviours and symbolic play of young children with ASD of limited verbal ability (N=75) were assessed using the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule 一 Generic (Lord, Rutter & DiLavore, 1996). Results confirmed associations found in Study 2 between level of repetitive behaviours and the level of symbolic play and showed that level of symbolic play was primarily influenced by expressive language ability. Building upon these findings, a new rater-based observational method was developed using a model of typical play development. This measure allowed detailed examination of the sophistication of different aspects of symbolic play in ASD, something lacking in previous research and existing measures of play. The observational measure was found to be valid and reliable when used with typical and atypical populations. Subsequent use of the measure revealed that young children with ASD (N=60) had specific difficulties in engaging in play spontaneously and in using objects in play although play could be improved by an adult's use of prompts. This study confirmed the previous evidence of an association between repetitive behaviours and symbolic play in the ASD population and that this association is influenced by language ability. This research has produced two new measures which may be used in future clinical and research work into repetitive behaviour and symbolic play in typical and atypical populations. The finding of an association between imaginative play impairments and repetitive behaviours in children with ASD supports Wing & Gould (1979) and suggests

Although a conceptually problematic construct, coping has been found to play an important role in development and wellbeing. Coping in children remains, however, a relatively sparsely researched area of study. The aim of this study was to investigate the association between children's coping styles and emotional outcomes, with particular reference to family factors, and maternal mental health and coping. Based on a review of the literature, it was hypothesised that particular coping styles would be associated with aspects of family functioning and children's symptoms. A new instrument designed to assess children's coping as a multidimensional construct was designed for use in this study. Results indicated that, as hypothesised, there were consistent relationships between family factors, such as maternal mental health, parentchild relationship quality and parent relationship quality, and children's coping, and also between children's coping and children's anxiety and somatic symptoms. In line with hypotheses, deficits in thought and emotion regulation were associated with greater anxiety and somatic symptoms, while strategies associated with self efficacy and constructive strategies were associated with lower symptom levels. Girls were more likely than boys to respond with preoccupation and perseveration and feelings of helplessness, while boys were more likely to report a positive outlook and feel capable of managing negative emotions. Better maternal mental health, positive parent-child relationships and harmonious parental relationships were associated with a more constructive coping style in children, while poorer ratings of maternal mental health, negative parent-child relationships and discordant parent relationships were associated with poor emotion and thought regulation in children. Aspects of mothers' coping were found to be associated with children's coping response styles, providing some support for the role of modelling in the development of children's coping. Contrary to expectation however, there were very few direct associations observed between family factors and children's anxiety and somatic symptoms. These results are discussed in the context of previous research. Limitations of the research are discussed and a number of potentially fruitful areas for future research and implications for interventions and practice are described.

No description available.