The purpose of my study is to examine how four teachers reflect on free play and controlled play in preschool. What are their reflects concerning free play, controlled play and children’s development and education. The main focus of this research is the experiences of the teachers and I compare their perspectives against each other regarding free and controlled play. To be able to realize this study, I propose the following questions: What kind of vision does the teacher have concerning free play and controlled play? According to the teacher, how does playing affect the children? Which development areas are affected by participating in the play? This is a qualitative study, based on interviews with four teachers from two different preschools. My theoretical approach to this is Vygotskij theories which are used to analyze the collected data. The result obtained is according to two teachers. They thought that the result of controlled play was positive. Meanwhile, two other teachers meant that the combination of free and controlled play should be used as a complement to children’s development and learning. The four teachers have different experience regarding what they think is good for the Childers development and education.

Virginia Axline developed a new field of child psychotherapy by applying a nondirective approach to the burgeoning experimentation of utilizing play in therapeutic work with children. While much biographical information is available regarding other leaders in the fields of counseling and psychology, historical research into Axline and her development of child-centered play therapy represent a gap in the literature. The purpose of the current study was to: 1) examine the professional contributions of Virginia Axline; 2) gather personal information regarding Axline that contributes to deeper understanding of her theory; and 3) identify life circumstances or events that influenced Axline's professional contributions. Historical methodology was utilized to locate and examine artifacts and materials necessary to create an interpretive biography of Axline's life and work, with a focus on her professional influences, experiences, and contributions. Historical methods utilized include historiography, oral history, and interpretive biography, with an emphasis on established and accepted source criticism and data synthesis processes. The research yielded a number of historically significant and previously unknown documents valuable to the field of CCPT including personal correspondence, academic writings, and interviews, as well as academic and government records. The research also established new information about and understandings of several of Axline's professional relationships. The research also calls into question the original authorship of scholarly contributions in the field of counseling for which Axline may have deserved, but not received credit. Included in the biography is information related to Axline's early life, higher education, career timeline, professional development, mentoring relationships, research interests, student perceptions, collegial relationships, personal hardships, professional interests and advocacy, teaching and learning methods, and her decline in later life.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Illinois State University, 1999. / Title from title page screen, viewed July 18, 2006. Dissertation Committee: Laura E. Berk (chair), Paul T. Shallaert, Jayne E. Bucy, Matthew S. Hesson-McInnis, Mark E. Swerdlik. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 97-126) and abstract. Also available in print.

The aim of the study was to determine how Gestalt play therapy may be used in the therapeutic treatment of children in middle childhood who stutter. Stuttering is a problem that touches the lives of many people and is associated with great interpersonal distress. Stuttering is especially difficult for children in middle childhood, a time dominated by the school experience. Gestalt play therapy creates a child-friendly environment, in which the child can share information in a safe manner through the use of play therapeutic techniques. Literature was reviewed according to relevant topics, semi-structured interviews were conducted with three respondents, the data obtained was qualitatively analysed and research findings were discussed. The researcher concludes that Gestalt play therapy can be used to good effect with children who stutter, as it allows them to work through their emotions, and therefore, encourages them to communicate more freely within the therapeutic environment. / Social Work / M. Diac. (Play Therapy)

Play is the primary activity of childhood. It is connected to other areas of child’s development, therefore through play, children improve skills and abilities. The most common categorization of play is into the developmental and social aspect of play. The highest level of play is achieved when the true social play occurs. The ideal setting for social play to occur is early childhood education and care (ECEC) institutions. ECEC in Croatia is striving for inclusion of children with difficulties/special needs, as stated in Croatian ECEC leading documents. In this study, these children will be referred to as children in need of special support since is perceived that name reflects the bio-psycho-social model of disability that recognizes issues in child´s functioning, apart from the child itself, coming from the environment. All the services, for children in need of special support, including ECEC are disability-based. It has been found that children in need of special support experience problems during play which affects other domains of development. The purpose of the study is to investigate play of children in need of special support and the factors, i.e., facilitators and barriers for their play. Play of the children in need of special support is chosen to be explored through the perception of their parents and educators with the use of the grounded theory approach. After collecting data through interviews and preformed data analysis, characteristics of play children in need of special support display together with the factors that affect play positively or negatively emerged. Factors were found to affect children’s play directly or indirectly. The most outstanding facilitators for children’s play were found to be the parents’ and educators’ actions and attitudes regarding the importance of play. The most substantial barriers were found to lie in the children’s characteristics concerning play which were tended to be perceived as consequences of their difficulties and diagnosis-based educational and social systems. Furthermore, the schooling system forcing ECEC institutions to focus on early preparedness for academic success, putting play aside emerged as a notable barrier for the play.

Aggressive behaviors in childhood currently serve as the leading cause of counselor referrals within the United States. Children exhibiting maladaptive aggressive symptomology are at an increased risk for highly externalized and problematic behaviors across the lifespan. Emotional self-regulation and empathy are two constructs currently believed to be closely related to aggression, but a lack of research exploring these variables currently exists in the counseling literature. In this study I examined the effect of child-centered play therapy (CCPT), is a manualized, developmentally responsive, and nondirective intervention, on these variables. Participants were 71 students from four Title 1 elementary schools in the southwest U.S. referred by teachers for aggressive behavior (12 females, 59 males; age range 5-10 years with mean age 6.28. The sample consisted of 52.1% (n = 37) children identified as African American, 21.1% (n = 15) as Latina/Latino, 19.7% (n = 14) as Caucasian, and 7% as multiracial (n = 5). Participants were randomly assigned to 8 weeks of a twice-weekly CCPT experimental group (n = 36) or a waitlist control group (n = 35). Results of descriptive discriminant analyses (DDA) of the Social Emotional Assets and Resilience Scale and the Children’s Aggression Scale scores revealed that parents perceived children’s group membership in CCPT as significant and reasonably predictive of improvement in children’s aggression, self-regulation, and empathy. However, teachers did not perceive a statistically significant difference between the two groups with respect to these variables. These results suggest the relevancy of CCPT for parents in providing children with a developmentally responsive intervention to reduce aggressive behaviors and support their healthy development.

Parent Adaptive Doll Play, a technique in an early stage of development, is designed for use by parents in assisting their young children to cope with the stresses of parental separation/divorce. The effects of technique implementation by parents of three- through six-year-old children were investigated. Data was collected before and after parents received training and implemented the technique over an eight-week period. Parents completed the Child Behavior Rating Scale, Burks' Behavior Rating Scales, the Parenting Stress Index, and the Parental Attitude Scale. Twenty-two parents, reporting marital separation through separation and/or divorce, within 18 months prior to the beginning of the study, and reporting more than 50 percent physical custody of a three- through six-year-old child qualified for participation. Twelve children were experimental subjects and ten were control subjects. To determine differences between groups, a one-way analysis of covariance was performed on each post test variable. Positive differences were calculated in several areas of child behavior by parents of subjects in the experimental group. No significant differences between groups were found in any area of child behavior. The score which most closely approached significance, however, was found in the Burks' Behavior Rating Scale area of poor anger control.

This study utilized ethnomethodology to provide a description of the process and the effect of training counselors to incorporate the concepts and techniques of Individual Psychology into play therapy. Transcripts of the training program and of three individual interviews with the nine counselors who participated in the training were made. These transcripts and the journals in which the subjects were asked to chronicle their personal experiences and reactions to the training were qualitatively analyzed. This analysis indicated that most of the subjects reported that their attitudes toward play therapy, toward themselves as play therapists, and toward their play therapy clients had changed after their participation in the Adlerian play therapy training. The majority of subjects also reported that they perceived that their behavior in their play therapy sessions had changed, frequently in the direction of including more creative and active techniques. Qualitative analysis of the transcripts made from videotaped play therapy sessions by the researcher and an outside evaluator indicated that, while some of the counselors' behaviors seemed to have changed after the training, many of the counselors' behaviors did not appear to have been affected by their participation in the training. Possible explanations of the discrepancy between the counselors' perceptions of their behavior and the researcher's and outside evaluator's perceptions of the counselors' behaviors were discussed. Other areas considered as worthy of in-depth examination were: (a) possible influences on the changes in the counselors' attitudes toward play therapy, toward themselves as play therapists, and toward their play therapy clients; (b) several factors involved in training counselor education students; (c) elements which may have affected the counselors' receptivity to learning a new method of conducting play therapy; (d) implications for the future adaptation of the Adlerian play therapy training program; and (f) potential avenues for future research.

Play is a self-motivated seemingly non-functional behavior mainly observed in young animals. Moreover, play behaviors can be divided into three categories; social play, object play and locomotor play. The type of activity the category contains varies, as play behaviors vary between species. Play behavior is seen as an indicator of positive emotions in animals, therefore play could be an indicator of welfare. However, the relationship between play and welfare requires further studies. In this study, information was compiled from various articles about play and its relation to welfare. Above all, the study focuses on welfare and play in chickens, as studies on chickens are most lacking. Play provides several benefits regarding motor training, social cohesion and cognitive training. Livestock such as calves, piglets and lambs have all been observed playing. No play has been confirmed in chickens which is mainly due to lack of research. However, play has been observed in other bird species, including birds within the order Galliformes. Amount and type of play varies depending on the environment, which suggests that animal welfare has a great significance for play. If no play occurs, one could conclude that welfare needs to be improved. Lack of play observed in chickens could be due to poor welfare or lack of research. After all, presence of play in other bird species increases the probability that chickens also play. Results indicate that play could be used as an indicator for welfare.

A randomized controlled trial study was conducted to test the effectiveness of 16 sessions of the modalities of individual and group child-centered play therapy (CCPT) on improving social-emotional assets, including self-regulation/responsibility, social competence, and empathy. Participants were 56 students in four urban elementary schools in north central Texas, referred by teachers for disruptive or problematic behavior: 10 female and 46 male; ages 5 to 10 years with mean age 7.12; and 21 identifying as Hispanic, 17 as White, 8 as Multiracial, 1 as Asian, and 9 unspecified. Teachers and parents completed the Social and Emotional Assets and Resilience Scale (SEARS; Merrill, 2011) at pre- and post-treatment. With a significance criterion of p< .05, teacher reports provided no statistically significant results. However, parent reports indicated a statistically and practically significant interaction effect with a medium to large effect size, indicating a substantial improvement in children's scores from pre- to post-test attributed to group assignment. Mean differences indicated substantial gains in overall social-emotional assets, according to Total scores, in both individual and group treatment conditions as compared to the waitlist control group. Additionally, both individual and group play therapy was correlated with significant improvement with a large effect for the constructs of self-regulation/responsibility and social competence, with the group condition having a larger effect than the individual condition. Regarding empathy, neither modality resulted in significant improvement, though individual CCPT resulted practically in a large effect. These results indicate CCPT may provide a developmentally appropriate treatment for clinicians working with children in schools and in the community to foster their social and emotional competencies.