When children role play, they do things such as change their tone of voice or take on the character’s emotions or needs. These behaviours make it appear as though children adopt the mental perspective of the character they are pretending to be, which has led some researchers to argue that children “think-as-if” they are the character while role playing (e.g., Harris, 2000). However, it is questionable whether these sorts of behaviours can really be taken as strong evidence that children are “thinking-as-if”; children might simply be imitating the distinctive behavioural characteristics of the character they are pretending to be – or “behaving-as-if”. In two studies, I attempted to obtain better evidence that children “think-as-if” while role playing. To do this, I developed a novel paradigm called the Pretend Self-recognition (PSR) task that examines how children refer to photographs of themselves while they are pretending to be someone else. I reasoned that if children were truly “thinking-as-if”, they might see the photograph of themselves as a third person would, and thus refer to the photograph of themselves using their own proper name. In contrast, if children were simply "behaving-as-if", they might continue to refer to the photograph with the personal pronoun “me”. In Study 1, approximately half of 4-year-old children labeled their own photograph from the perspective of the character they were pretending to be, and thus showed evidence of "thinking-as-if". This finding was replicated when children were given the PSR task at two time points along with measures of theory of mind, executive functioning, pretense understanding, and narrative absorption. Results showed that PSR performance was stable across testing period, but was not related to any of the other constructs that were also measured. Taken together, the findings reported in this dissertation show that the PSR task is a reliable measure of perspective taking in role play, though the source of individual differences in the measure remains a target for future research. The lack of relation between individual differences might suggest that PSR performance is orthogonal to the other constructs and is something in its own right. / Thesis (Ph.D, Psychology) -- Queen's University, 2009-04-15 17:02:11.029

While there is evidence of early creativity in children’s colorful drawings, original stories, and elaborate games of pretense, conducting research on the topic of children’s creativity can be challenging. In particular, the most commonly used measures of creativity have been shown to be problematic, particularly with young children. Therefore, an important goal of this dissertation was to develop appropriate laboratory tasks for assessing children’s creativity. At Time 1, 75 4- and 5-year-old children (38 boys, 37 girls) were asked to complete two new measures of creativity – a storytelling task and a drawing task. In addition, the children were interviewed about whether they engaged in elaborated role play (i.e., pretending in which children imagine and act out the part of a character on a regular basis). The results indicated that the laboratory measures of creativity were both related to engaging in elaborated role play as well as related to each other (independent of age and language ability), suggesting that the measures were effective in assessing young children’s creativity, and that they were specifically associated with elaborated role play. Another goal of this dissertation was to examine the continuity of individual differences in creativity from preschool age to middle school age with a longitudinal follow-up assessment of the children from Time 1 approximately eight years later when they were 11 to 14 years old. 41 children (21 boys, 20 girls) participated at Time 2 and completed a large battery of creativity measures, including tasks similar to the laboratory measures at Time 1 as well as additional measures that varied in whether they included social content. Contrary to hypotheses, laboratory measures of creativity at Time 1 did not predict any of the measures of creativity at Time 2. However, the creativity ratings of the role play characters from Time 1 were related to all of the indicators of creativity eight years later. In addition, having an imaginary companion at Time 2 was concurrently related to several measures of creativity. These results suggest that elaborated role play might be particularly relevant for children’s developing creativity. This dissertation includes previously published co-authored material.

No description available.

This study explored how documentation contributed to children's symbolic play. The naturally occurring symbolic play of two children, five-years-old, was videotaped in their classroom for four weeks. Edited segments of their symbolic play were then given to the children to revisit and reflect on with the researcher through questions on themes, roles and object substitutions. Each child participated in three interview sessions. The children's thoughts on themes, roles, object substitutions, pretense and play negotiation were described. The children's symbolic play in the classroom and during the interviews was described in relation to the claims of documentation. The role of documentation in children's symbolic play was discussed. Recommendations for future use of documentation and children's symbolic play were made. / Master of Science

Pretend play is a developmental process linked to both cognition and socioemotional functioning (e.g., Frahsek et al., 2010; Russ, 2004). The connection between pretend play and development supports the clinical utility of play as a tool for emotional and behavioral health assessment and intervention. Despite this strength, play-based measures are underutilized and often lack psychometric integrity (Shicke Athanasiou, 2000). The Affect in Play Scale (APS) and Affect in Play Scale-Preschool version (APS-P) are comparable play-based tasks adapted for different age groups. In particular, the APS-P is used with children ages 4-6 years while the APS is used with children ages 6-10 years. The measures have strong research support and theoretic basis, including consistently impressive validity and reliability (e.g., Delvecchio et al., 2016; Fehr & Russ, 2014; Kaugars & Russ, 2009; Russ, 2004). However, there is overlap in that either measure could be administered to six-year-old children, and it is unclear if children would perform equally across both measures. Only one study has specifically examined correspondence between the two measures and the impact of which task is selected (i.e., APS or APS-P) on cognitive and affective scores observed, and this study examined the play of Italian children (Mazzeschi et al., 2008). The current study explored the correspondence and agreement of cognitive, affective, and type of play (e.g., functional, pretend play) APS and APS-P scores in a US sample, as well as the impact of administration type (i.e., whether the APS or APS-P were administered) on differences between obtained scores. A sample of 27 six- and seven-year-old children were included in the current analyses. Results indicated high correlations between APS and APS-P scores. However, absolute agreement was variable, ranging from good to poor. With the exception of Functional Play, children had significant differences in their scores between the APS and APS-P. Overall, results suggest that children tended to obtain higher play scores on the APS-P than the APS. Given the strong clinical utility of play-based measures, further research is needed on the APS and APS-P to explore the factors that may impact observed differences in order to guide future clinical use and measure selection for specific uses. Additional clinical implications, strengths, limitations, and future directions are discussed.

Play is a universal activity among children that can be indicative of a child’s developmental level. Additionally, play provides an avenue for children to practice certain skills and can be a causal agent in developmental change. Pretend play is especially important given the underlying cognitive and affective processes that are involved in pretense. Play is also strongly linked with creativity and psychosocial adjustment. Children with better play skills also demonstrate higher levels of creativity, emotion knowledge, social adjustment, and problem-solving abilities. Research suggests that culture and language also play an important role in child play development. Furthermore, parent play beliefs can impact how children develop play skills. Understanding differences in play development and related factors can inform interventions to improve play skills in this population. Additionally, research indicates a relationship between language and play and creativity. Learning more than one language may be related to children’s play skills and creative capacities. Thus, one aim was to investigate differences in play, creativity, and psychosocial adjustment between children in general education classrooms and children in an immersive bilingual education program (TWI program). A total of 117 child participants ages 5-10 years in kindergarten through 5th grade were recruited for this study. Participants completed tasks related to play and creativity and their parents completed questionnaires regarding parent play beliefs and child psychosocial adjustment. Results regarding play, creativity, and psychosocial adjustment indicated a strong relationship between play and creativity, consistent with prior research; however, no significant relationship was found between play and psychosocial adjustment. The TWI group demonstrated more imagination in their play and obtained higher scores on divergent thinking and fluency, which are measures of creativity, compared to those in the general education group. In the overall sample, parent play beliefs were not significantly related to pretend play skills. Overall, the results from the current study indicate that learning a second language in an immersive bilingual setting, play, and creativity are positively related to one another. These findings can inform future interventions. For example, incorporating play into language learning interventions may further enhance or improve language acquisition. Further exploration of the relationships between each of these variables is needed. Additionally, research regarding play, creativity, and parent beliefs in diverse populations is still necessary to understand the underlying cognitive processes that may be shared among these factors.

Master of Science / School of Family Studies and Human Services / Deborah Norris / Language development in early childhood is an important indicator and precursor for children’s later development in various areas, such as emotional, social, cognitive, and academic development. Studies have shown that pretend play, as one of the predominant play types during the preschool period, is an important activity to facilitate children’s learning experiences and exploration. However, there has been a lack of consistency in findings across studies due to different study designs. It is likely that these varying study characteristics have resulted in the variability of effects in the pretend play-language relationship, which has been also suggested by previous reviews. These factors point to the potential of meta-analysis for organizing the studies into a common paradigm and better understanding the practical significance of play-language relationships. The current meta-analysis systematically reviewed and analytically investigated 25 existing empirical studies that had examined the associations between pretend play and language development among young children. The overall magnitude of the association between pretend play and language development, .36, showed a moderate association. Furthermore, moderator analyses indicated that several factors, such as the role of adults or children’s play types, tended to have considerable impacts on the associations between pretend play and language development. This study has determined the strength of the research foundation that currently supports inclusion of pretend play in preschool classrooms and has charted future research on the pretend play-language associations in the early childhood research field.

No description available.

The ability to represent the mental states of others (i.e., Theory of Mind, ToM) is vital for social interaction. There is limited information on ToM knowledge in children with specific language impairment (SLI). These children have deficient language abilities that cannot be explained by hearing, cognitive, or neurological problems. Furthermore, children with SLI experience difficulty in initiating and maintaining social pretend play. Language, pretend play, and ToM typically develop in concert, which may indicate that they share an underlying capacity for representation. Given that language is deficient in children with SLI, these children may have problems with ToM, which might be related to their social behaviors during pretend play. This study was the first to investigate the association between ToM and pretend play in children with and without SLI. Twenty-two children with SLI and 22 with typical development (TD), between 48-71 months of age, participated in this study. Children engaged in a variety of ToM tasks and participated in two pretend play assessments: a standardized pretend play assessment and a role play activity. Children with SLI scored significantly lower on ToM tasks and engaged less often in some sophisticated forms of pretend play than their age-matched peers with TD. After controlling for language and SES, there were no significant associations between ToM and pretend play in children with and without SLI. When language groups were analyzed individually, different patterns of associations emerged for children with and without SLI. ToM was positively associated with pretend play in children with TD but negatively associated in children with SLI. Moreover, inconsistent patterns of associations were observed for some children with SLI (i.e., poor ToM understanding but sophisticated pretend play or vice versa). This study demonstrated that children with SLI may also have concomitant problems in ToM and pretend play, which may have implications for clinical assessment and intervention. The study contributes to the literature by investigating the link between ToM and different forms of sophisticated pretend play in children with and without SLI. Given the different patterns of partial correlations, future investigation of the relationship between ToM and pretend play relationship is warranted.

Children with language impairment (LI) are more likely to be socially withdrawn than their typically-developing peers. This withdrawal can lead to negative outcomes later in life. This study focuses on a subtype of withdrawal labeled as solitary-pretend play, which involves parallel play and solitary-dramatizing. The effectiveness of the Teacher Behavior Rating Scale (TBRS) to measure the construct of solitary-pretend play was considered in a group of 256 children. First, confirmatory factor analysis was used on the entire sample to assess the TBRS questions. The TBRS ratings of 128 children with LI and 128 typically developing peers were then compared, with group and gender as variables. The analyses revealed that the TBRS items intended to measure solitary-pretend play grouped together to measure a single construct. Additionally, significant differences were observed between the groups of children with LI and their typically-developing peers. There was also a significant difference between boys and girls. The interaction between these variables was not significant. These results demonstrated that the TBRS is a viable measure of solitary-pretend play in children and that children with LI are rated as demonstrating higher levels of solitary-pretend play that their typical peers. Boys were also rated as demonstrating more instances of solitary-pretend play compared to girls. This study suggests that the TBRS is an effective way to quickly identify instances of solitary-pretend play in children and that children with LI and boys are more likely to demonstrate instances of solitary-pretend play, which will lead to the needed referrals and interventions to help manage these behaviors. Further research is required to determine the extent to which the influence of group and age has on solitary-pretend play and the extent to which each of the subtypes of withdrawal relate one to another.