Student Engagement & Wellbeing News

The Importance of Play

What are you doing over the holidays? Let me give you some food for thought.

Kids learn through play. Giving them opportunities to play helps kids to explore and piece together their understanding of the world around them. Last time, I started to explore the connection between play and language development but play also has an impact on cognitive development.

Play is often a consideration for younger children, hence our Hall program at MPW, but many important play skills have relevance for older students, e.g. problem solving, emotional regulation, conflict resolution, negotiation and perspective taking. Play experience for older learners may occur in different contexts, but is equally important in the continuation of social skill development.

If you are interested in facilitating play at home, there are many types of play that kids get benefit from, including;

Spontaneous play
Exploratory play (sensory, concepts)
Pretend play
Fine motor skills play (developing hand strength)
Gross motor skills play (large movement - arms, legs, core strength)
Co-operative play (games with rules. This play may need adult support to model negotiation and team skills. It is important that the group establishes a shared understanding of the rules)

Language and Play Connections

Both play and language begin with a focus on concrete concepts and the here and now, and gradually develop to incorporate more abstract ideas and contexts.

Word combinations are often preceded by play combinations and that there is a high correlation between the length of play sequences children engage in and the length of sentences they produce. Research shows that children who demonstrate higher levels of interactive and social play, typically display higher level skills across a range of areas including:

empathy
theory of mind
vocabulary
problem solving
language comprehension

6 Stages of Play

Unoccupied play - content with looking at an object.
Solitary play - content to play and explore objects alone.
Onlooker play - watches others play but not yet joining in.
Parallel play - play alongside but not yet with others.
Associate play - starts to interact with others during play. They may play with a toy at the same time, or they might talk to each other during play.
Cooperative play - plays together with others. This play may need instructions or rules.

Facilitating Play

Remember that play is spontaneous; enjoyable; voluntary; not goal oriented (therefore there is no fear of failure); self driven; and self directed.

In fact, play can help us build self-regulation skills in terms of both behaviour and emotion.

Use this opportunity to observe or bond with your little ones, rather than correct.
Model language through the use of sentences, or offering alternative words and phrases or giving commentary on what they are doing.
Model turn taking behaviours, which is a precursor to turn taking in talking.
Go with THEIR flow. If they are not developmentally ready for a type of play yet, give it time. They will get there. For example, some kids play alongside others, rather than WITH others. We can encourage them to join in with others and model the language to ask to play, but if they are not ready for that, forcing them may take the joy out of play.

Autism and Play

Autistic children enjoy play just as much as anyone, it just may look a little different, and that is okay. For example:

May find it challenging to engage and maintain attention of others when engaged in preferred play tasks
May prefer their own actions and role sequences or narratives
May be drawn to peers and friends with similar interests, even if they are much older or younger
May prefer highly structured social interactions, like gaming
May demonstrate a strong preference for repetitive play behaviours and use objects in a specific manner - lining up toys, sorting toys into categories or types, or exploring different elements of toys; and this can be regulating for the nervous system
May prefer play to follow specific outlines and can include complex roles or narratives that are difficult to articulate or explain to others; and frustration may occur when others do not follow along exactly as planned (which can occur with young children who have differing ideas or wavering attention)
May show preferences for sensory elements of play that may or may not include repetition of actions that they enjoy
May have preferences for engaging in activities that have set rules and can prefer to maintain those rules throughout the play sequence
May experience difficulty combining play actions and language due to competing executive function requirements
May want to spend time alone during play which may be multiple factors at play e.g. sensory sensitivities/overwhelm, competing ideas and preference for play to follow a specific procedure or narrative. Autistic children do want to make friends and play with others, can request solitude to take a break and can find play frustrating - knowing the child will be the best indication as to how you can support their play and play ideas.
May have difficulty with emotional regulation associated with executive function when conflict occurs and require co-regulation.

To learn more about play, check out this website About Us – Learn to Play Therapy

Anna Gbikpi-Benissan