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INTRODUCTION

The benefits of play, reduced child-driven play and the potential repercussions, factors that have changed the routine of childhood, why is it a problem, family considerations, what are the solutions, advice for pediatricians *, conclusions, committee on communications, 2006–2007, committee on psychosocial aspects of child and family health, 2006–2007, consultants, the importance of play in promoting healthy child development and maintaining strong parent-child bonds.

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Kenneth R. Ginsburg , and the Committee on Communications , and the Committee on Psychosocial Aspects of Child and Family Health; The Importance of Play in Promoting Healthy Child Development and Maintaining Strong Parent-Child Bonds. Pediatrics January 2007; 119 (1): 182–191. 10.1542/peds.2006-2697

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Play is essential to development because it contributes to the cognitive, physical, social, and emotional well-being of children and youth. Play also offers an ideal opportunity for parents to engage fully with their children. Despite the benefits derived from play for both children and parents, time for free play has been markedly reduced for some children. This report addresses a variety of factors that have reduced play, including a hurried lifestyle, changes in family structure, and increased attention to academics and enrichment activities at the expense of recess or free child-centered play. This report offers guidelines on how pediatricians can advocate for children by helping families, school systems, and communities consider how best to ensure that play is protected as they seek the balance in children’s lives to create the optimal developmental milieu.

Play is so important to optimal child development that it has been recognized by the United Nations High Commission for Human Rights as a right of every child. 1   This birthright is challenged by forces including child labor and exploitation practices, war and neighborhood violence, and the limited resources available to children living in poverty. However, even those children who are fortunate enough to have abundant available resources and who live in relative peace may not be receiving the full benefits of play. Many of these children are being raised in an increasingly hurried and pressured style that may limit the protective benefits they would gain from child-driven play. Because every child deserves the opportunity to develop to their unique potential, child advocates must consider all factors that interfere with optimal development and press for circumstances that allow each child to fully reap the advantages associated with play.

No single set of guidelines could do justice to the many factors that impact on children’s play, even if it was to focus only on children living in the United States. These guidelines will focus on how American children with adequate resources may be limited from enjoying the full developmental assets associated with play because of a family’s hurried lifestyle as well as an increased focus on the fundamentals of academic preparation in lieu of a broader view of education. Those forces that prevent children in poverty and the working class from benefiting fully from play deserve full, even urgent, attention, and will be addressed in a future document. Those issues that impact on play for children with limited resources will be mentioned briefly here to reinforce that play contributes to optimal child development for all children and that we must advocate for the changes specific to the need of each child’s social and environmental context that would enhance the opportunities for play.

These guidelines were written in response to the multiple forces that challenge play. The overriding premise is that play (or some available free time in the case of older children and adolescents) is essential to the cognitive, physical, social, and emotional well-being of children and youth. Although the guidelines were written in defense of play, they should not be interpreted as being against other forces that compete for children’s time. Academic enrichment opportunities are vital for some children’s ability to progress academically, and participation in organized activities is known to promote healthy youth development. 2 , 3   It is essential that a wide variety of programming remain available to meet the needs of both children and families. Rather, these guidelines call for an inclusion of play as we seek the balance in children’s lives that will create the optimal developmental milieu to prepare our children to be academically, socially, and emotionally equipped to lead us into the future.

Play allows children to use their creativity while developing their imagination, dexterity, and physical, cognitive, and emotional strength. Play is important to healthy brain development. 4 – 6   It is through play that children at a very early age engage and interact in the world around them. Play allows children to create and explore a world they can master, conquering their fears while practicing adult roles, sometimes in conjunction with other children or adult caregivers. 7 – 14   As they master their world, play helps children develop new competencies that lead to enhanced confidence and the resiliency they will need to face future challenges. 7 , 10 , 15   Undirected play allows children to learn how to work in groups, to share, to negotiate, to resolve conflicts, and to learn self-advocacy skills. 7 , 10 , 11 , 16   When play is allowed to be child driven, children practice decision-making skills, move at their own pace, discover their own areas of interest, and ultimately engage fully in the passions they wish to pursue. 7 , 10 , 11   Ideally, much of play involves adults, but when play is controlled by adults, children acquiesce to adult rules and concerns and lose some of the benefits play offers them, particularly in developing creativity, leadership, and group skills. 17   In contrast to passive entertainment, play builds active, healthy bodies. In fact, it has been suggested that encouraging unstructured play may be an exceptional way to increase physical activity levels in children, which is one important strategy in the resolution of the obesity epidemic. 18 , 19   Perhaps above all, play is a simple joy that is a cherished part of childhood.

Children’s developmental trajectory is critically mediated by appropriate, affective relationships with loving and consistent caregivers as they relate to children through play. 4   When parents observe their children in play or join with them in child-driven play, they are given a unique opportunity to see the world from their child’s vantage point as the child navigates a world perfectly created just to fit his or her needs. (The word “parent” is used in this report to represent the wide range of adult caregivers who raise children.) The interactions that occur through play tell children that parents are fully paying attention to them and help to build enduring relationships. 6 , 13 , 14 , 20 , 21   Parents who have the opportunity to glimpse into their children’s world learn to communicate more effectively with their children and are given another setting to offer gentle, nurturing guidance. Less verbal children may be able to express their views, experiences, and even frustrations through play, allowing their parents an opportunity to gain a fuller understanding of their perspective. Quite simply, play offers parents a wonderful opportunity to engage fully with their children.

Play is integral to the academic environment. It ensures that the school setting attends to the social and emotional development of children as well as their cognitive development. It has been shown to help children adjust to the school setting and even to enhance children’s learning readiness, learning behaviors, and problem-solving skills. 22 – 32   Social-emotional learning is best integrated with academic learning; it is concerning if some of the forces that enhance children’s ability to learn are elevated at the expense of others. Play and unscheduled time that allow for peer interactions are important components of social-emotional learning. 33 , 34  

Despite the numerous benefits derived from play for both children and parents, time for free play has been markedly reduced for some children. This trend has even affected kindergarten children, who have had free play reduced in their schedules to make room for more academics. A 1989 survey taken by the National Association of Elementary School Principals found that 96% of surveyed school systems had at least 1 recess period. Another survey a decade later found that only 70% of even kindergarten classrooms had a recess period. 35 , 36  

Currently, many schoolchildren are given less free time and fewer physical outlets at school; many school districts responded to the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 37   by reducing time committed to recess, the creative arts, and even physical education in an effort to focus on reading and mathematics. 38 , 39   This change may have implications on children’s ability to store new information, because children’s cognitive capacity is enhanced by a clear-cut and significant change in activity. 35 , 40   A change in academic instruction or class topic does not offer this clear-cut change in cognitive effort and certainly does not offer a physical release. Even a formal structured physical education class may not offer the same benefit as free-play recess. 35 , 41   Reduced time for physical activity may be contributing to the discordant academic abilities between boys and girls, because schools that promote sedentary styles of learning become a more difficult environment for boys to navigate successfully. 42 , 43  

Some children are given less time for free exploratory play as they are hurried to adapt into adult roles and prepare for their future at earlier ages. 44 – 46   Parents are receiving carefully marketed messages that good parents expose their children to every opportunity to excel, buy a plethora of enrichment tools, and ensure their children participate in a wide variety of activities. 45 , 47   Children are exposed to enrichment videos and computer programs from early infancy as well as specialized books and toys designed to ensure that they are well-rounded and adequately stimulated for excelled development. Specialized gyms and enrichment programs designed for children exist in many communities, and there is an abundance of after-school enrichment activities. These tools and programs are heavily marketed, and many parents have grown to believe that they are a requirement of good parenting and a necessity for appropriate development. As a result, much of parent-child time is spent arranging special activities or transporting children between those activities. In addition to time, considerable family financial resources are being invested to ensure that the children have what are marketed as the “very best” opportunities. 33 , 34 , 47 – 49  

It is clear that organized activities have a developmental benefit for children, especially in contrast to completely unsupervised time. 2   Some research substantiates that for most children, benefits increase with higher levels of participation. 2   In addition, it has been suggested that because this lifestyle is associated with middle-class families, it may have a benefit in maintaining social class or in creating upward mobility. 50   It is less clear, however, at what point a young person may be “overscheduled” to their developmental detriment or emotional distress. Free child-driven play known to benefit children is decreased, and the downtime that allows parents and children some of the most productive time for interaction is at a premium when schedules become highly packed with adult-supervised or adult-driven activities. 45 – 47 , 51 , 52  

It is left to parents to judge appropriate levels of involvement, but many parents seem to feel as though they are running on a treadmill to keep up yet dare not slow their pace for fear their children will fall behind. In addition, some worry they will not be acting as proper parents if they do not participate in this hurried lifestyle. 45 – 47 , 51 , 52  

Although most highly scheduled children are thriving, 2   some are reacting to the associated pressures with anxiety and other signs of increased stress. 45 , 46 , 53   In this regard, highly scheduled children have less time for free, child-driven, creative play, 45 , 46 , 47 , 54   which offers benefits that may be protective against the effects of pressure and stress. 45 , 54   There is evidence that childhood and adolescent depression is on the rise through the college years. 55 – 60   Although there are certainly many factors involved, and a direct link between the early pressure-filled intense preparation for a high-achieving adulthood and these mental health concerns cannot be made on the basis of current research, it is important that we consider the possibility of this linkage. We can be certain that in some families, the protective influences of both play and high-quality family time are negatively affected by the current trends toward highly scheduling children.

As trusted child advocates, pediatric health professionals are ideally suited to help parents consider the appropriate balance between preparing for the future and living fully in the present through play, child-centered organized activities, and rich parent-child interaction. It is likely that the balance that needs to be achieved will be different for every child on the basis of the child’s academic needs, temperament, environment, and the family’s needs. Because there are so many forces that influence the trend toward focusing on future preparation, it is important that parents have a medical home that can reinforce the importance of some of the basic, tried-and-true aspects of child rearing.

There may be as many explanations for the current trends as there are families, but several key factors that have led to decreased free play should be considered.

There are more families with a single head of household or 2 working parents and fewer multigenerational households in which grandparents and extended family members can watch the children. Therefore, fewer families have available adult supervision in the home during the workday, which makes it necessary for children to be in child care or other settings in which they can be monitored by adults throughout the day. 61   Organized after-school activities and academic enrichment opportunities offer valuable alternatives to children who might otherwise be left with minimal or no adult supervision.

Many parents have learned how to become increasingly efficient in balancing work and home schedules. They wish to make the most effective use of limited time with their children and believe that facilitating their children to have every opportunity is the best use of that time. Some may use some of the standards of efficiency and productivity they have mastered at work to judge their own effectiveness as parents; this is sometimes referred to as the professionalization of parenthood. 51   This phenomenon may create guilt in parents who find it difficult to balance competing demands after a taxing workday. Parents who understand that high-interaction, at-home activities (eg, reading or playing with children) present opportunities for highly effective parenting may feel less stress than those who feel compelled to arrange out-of-home opportunities.

Parents receive messages from a variety of sources stating that good parents actively build every skill and aptitude their child might need from the earliest ages. They are deluged in parenting magazines and in the media with a wide range of enrichment tools and activities that tout their ability to produce super-achieving children. They read about parents who go to extreme efforts, at great personal sacrifice, to make sure their children participate in a variety of athletic and artistic opportunities. They hear other parents in the neighborhood talk about their overburdened schedules and recognize it is the culture and even expectation of parents. 51 , 52  

The college-admissions process has become much more rigorous in recent years, largely because of a baby boom hitting the college years. Parents receive the message that if their children are not well prepared, well balanced, and high-achieving, they will not get a desired spot in higher education. Even parents who wish to take a lower-key approach to child rearing fear slowing down when they perceive everyone else is on the fast track. 62 , 63   Children are encouraged to build a college resume through both academic excellence and a wide variety of activities and volunteer efforts starting at younger ages. In some cases, parents feel pressured to help their child build a strong resume.

In response to the increasingly rigorous college-admissions process, many secondary schools are judged by the rates in which their students are accepted by the most prestigious centers of higher learning. Partly in response to this, many students have been encouraged to carry increasingly rigorous academic schedules, including multiple advanced-placement courses. In addition, many students are taking preparation courses for standardized entrance examinations. These students are left with less free time because of the home preparatory time needed for their classes.

The pressure for admission to select schools begins for some families long before college. Selection for private preschool programs can even be competitive, and parents may need to consider how best to “package” their preschoolers.

There is a national trend to focus on the academic fundamentals of reading and arithmetic. This trend, spearheaded by the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, is a reaction to the unacceptable educational performance of America’s children in some educational settings. One of the practical effects of the trend is decreased time left during the school day for other academic subjects, as well as recess, creative arts, and physical education. 38 , 39   This trend may have implications for the social and emotional development of children and adolescents. 33   In addition, many after-school child care programs prioritize an extension of academics and homework completion over organized play, free play, and physical activity. 64  

The decrease in free play can also be explained by children being passively entertained through television or computer/video games. In sharp contrast to the health benefits of active, creative play and the known developmental benefits of an appropriate level of organized activities, there is ample evidence that this passive entertainment is not protective and, in fact, has some harmful effects. 65 – 68  

In many communities, children cannot play safely outside of the home unless they are under close adult supervision and protection. This is particularly true in areas that are unsafe because of increased violence or other environmental dangers.

It would be wrong to assume that the current trends are a problem for all children; some excel with a highly driven schedule. Because we need skilled young people to be well prepared to be tomorrow’s leaders, we must recognize the advantages to the increased exposures and enriched academics some of our children are receiving. In fact, many of our children, particularly those in poverty, should receive more enrichment activities. But even children who are benefiting from this enrichment still need some free unscheduled time for creative growth, self-reflection, and decompression and would profit from the unique developmental benefits of child-driven play.

However, for some children, this hurried lifestyle is a source of stress and anxiety and may even contribute to depression. 45 , 46   Increased pressure to achieve is likely to manifest in school avoidance and somatic symptoms. 69 – 72   The challenge for society, schools, and parents is to strike the balance that allows all children to reach their potential without pushing them beyond their personal comfort limits and while allowing them personal free playtime.

It appears that the increased pressures of adolescence have left some young people less equipped to manage the transition toward the college years. Many student health services and counseling centers on college campuses have not been able to keep pace with the increased need for mental health services, and surveys have substantiated this need by reporting an increase in depression and anxiety among college students. 57 – 59   A survey by the American College Health Association reported that 61% of college students had feelings of hopelessness during the previous academic year, 45% felt so depressed they had trouble functioning, and 9% suffered suicidal ideation. 57   Several studies have linked feelings of anxiety and depression with that of perfectionism and an overly critical self-evaluation. 72 – 77   Other studies have linked this perfectionism with highly critical parents who instill pressures to excel. 78 – 82   Perfectionism is challenging to the individual and has a broader effect on society because it may stifle creativity and unencumbered thinking. 83   There are no longitudinal studies that directly link intense preparation for adulthood during childhood to this rise in mental health needs, and there certainly are other causes, but some experts believe today’s pressured lifestyle is an important contributor. 46 , 84  

Children may also have received an unintended message from this hurried, intense preparation for adulthood. They may have learned that the end-point goal—the best school or the best job—must be reached at all costs. High schools, colleges, and universities throughout the country are reporting that more students may be cheating to achieve the desired end result of a superior grade. 85 , 86   Despite grade inflation over the last decades, many teachers report increased stress in students when they achieve less-than-perfect scores. 87 – 89   This competitive era may be producing a minority of young people so intensely worried about the appearance of high achievement that they will forsake core values such as fairness and honesty for the sake of acquiring good grades.

Some families whose children are highly scheduled may also suffer. Adults who may already be burdened by work responsibilities and maintaining a household find themselves sacrificing their downtime because they need to arrange activities and transport children between appointments. 45 – 47   In addition, because of the pressures they feel to meet every one of the needs they perceive (or are told) their child requires to excel, they may feel inadequate and ultimately have less personal satisfaction in parenting. 51 , 52   Most importantly, parents lose the opportunity for perhaps the highest-quality time with their children. Some of the best interactions occur during downtime—just talking, preparing meals together, and working on a hobby or art project, playing sports together, or being fully immersed in child-centered play.

As parents prepare their children for the future, they cannot know precisely which skills each will need for the workforce. With added anxiety over their inability to adequately predict the future, they become susceptible to the promises of success and full preparation offered by all of the special enrichment programs and vulnerable to the belief that if their children are at least exposed to everything, they will have the best chance to be prepared. Although no one can be sure what skills will be needed, certain character traits will produce children capable of navigating an increasingly complex world as they grow older. These traits include confidence, competence or the ability to master the environment, and a deep-seated connectedness to and caring about others that create the love, safety, and security that children need to thrive. In addition, to be resilient—to remain optimistic and be able to rebound from adversity—young people need the essential character traits of honesty, generosity, decency, tenacity, and compassion. Children are most likely to gain all of these essential traits of resiliency within a home in which parents and children have time to be together and to look to each other for positive support and unconditional love. 90 – 95   Many families are successfully navigating a wide variety of commitments without sacrificing high-quality parent-child time, 2   but some families’ ability to maintain essential parent-child time may be compromised by this hurried lifestyle. In these families, overscheduling may lead to less emotionally competent, well-buffered children.

Because there are at least several causes for the decreased amount of child-directed play, there is no single position that child advocates should take. For example, in the case of a child who is economically disadvantaged and does not reside in a safe neighborhood, it may be unwise to simply propose more child-centered play. Although parents can be encouraged to optimize conditions for this kind of play in the home, there must be broad societal responses that address poverty, social inequities, and violence before we can advise parents to allow unsupervised play. In addition, for children in poverty, enhanced child care services, early community-based education (eg, Head Start), increased academic programming, more enrichment activities, and greater opportunities for community-based adult-supervised activities are warranted. Some of the needed solutions for this group of disadvantaged children remain beyond the scope of this article and are raised here to emphasize that the suggestions offered here need to be individualized; one size does not fit all.

For all children, however, advocates need to promote the implementation of those strategies known to promote healthy youth development and resiliency. Some of those strategies are community based, and others are school based, but many reside within the family. They are rooted in the deep connection that develops when parents engage with their children. 92 , 93 , 95   Play remains an ideal venue for parents to engage fully, and child professionals must reinforce the value of this play. Some play must remain entirely child driven, with parents either not present or as passive observers, because play builds some of the individual assets children need to develop and remain resilient.

Parents need to feel supported to not passively accept the media and advertising messages that suggest there are more valuable means of promoting success and happiness in children than the tried, trusted, and traditional methods of play and family togetherness. Purveyors of these special programs should be encouraged to produce long-term evidence that define how their products/strategies produce more successful children. In parallel, we would encourage independent researchers to evaluate both the benefits and problems associated with these enrichment tools. Researchers should also continue to explore the type and quantity of activities that are likely to be enriching for children with different needs.

Colleges are seeing a generation of students who appear to be manifesting increased signs of depression, anxiety, perfectionism, and stress. They should clarify their messages about the type of students they seek in the face of widespread folklore that they seek only super-achieving students. Colleges certainly seek a physically and emotionally healthy student body with the character traits that support learning. Colleges could reduce the stress levels of young people and their parents if they offered clear, more realistic expectations about the type of students they seek and helped families to understand that there is a match for each reasonably prepared student. In addition, colleges should address the myth that desirable students are those who excel in every area. In the adult world, people rarely excel in more than 1 or 2 areas, while well-balanced individuals enjoy several others. Colleges should recognize the possibility that when children believe that they must excel in all areas to gain admission, they might respond to those perceived and unrealistic expectations with stress and anxiety. 62 , 63  

In the midst of so many conflicting messages about what parents should do to prepare their child for what is perceived to be an increasingly complicated, competitive world, pediatricians have a natural role to serve as caring, objective child professionals with whom parents can discuss their approach to child rearing and reflect on their own desires for their children. Because pediatricians have a unique and important role in promoting the physical, emotional, and social well-being of children and adolescents, it is important that they promote strategies that will support children to be resilient and to reduce excessive stressors in their lives.

Pediatricians can promote free play as a healthy, essential part of childhood. They should recommend that all children are afforded ample, unscheduled, independent, nonscreen time to be creative, to reflect, and to decompress. They should emphasize that although parents can certainly monitor play for safety, a large proportion of play should be child driven rather than adult directed.

Pediatricians should emphasize the advantages of active play and discourage parents from the overuse of passive entertainment (eg, television and computer games).

Pediatricians should emphasize that active child-centered play is a time-tested way of producing healthy, fit young bodies.

Pediatricians should emphasize the benefits of “true toys” such as blocks and dolls, with which children use their imagination fully, over passive toys that require limited imagination.

Pediatricians can educate families regarding the protective assets and increased resiliency developed through free play and some unscheduled time.

Pediatricians can reinforce that parents who share unscheduled spontaneous time with their children and who play with their children are being wonderfully supportive, nurturing, and productive.

Pediatricians can discuss that, although very well intentioned, arranging the finest opportunities for their children may not be parents’ best opportunity for influence and that shuttling their children between numerous activities may not be the best quality time. Children will be poised for success, basking in the knowledge that their parents absolutely and unconditionally love them. This love and attention is best demonstrated when parents serve as role models and family members make time to cherish one another: time to be together, to listen, and to talk, nothing more and nothing less. Pediatricians can remind parents that the most valuable and useful character traits that will prepare their children for success arise not from extracurricular or academic commitments but from a firm grounding in parental love, role modeling, and guidance.

Pediatricians should be a stable force, reminding parents that the cornerstones of parenting—listening, caring, and guiding through effective and developmentally appropriate discipline—and sharing pleasurable time together are the true predictors of childhood, and they serve as a springboard toward a happy, successful adulthood.

Pediatricians should help parents evaluate the claims made by marketers and advertisers about the products or interventions designed to produce super-children.

Pediatricians should emphasize the proven benefits of reading to their children, even at very early ages.

Pediatricians can be available to parents as sounding boards to help parents evaluate the specific needs of their child in terms of promoting resiliency, developing confidence and competence, and ultimately enhancing that child’s trajectory toward a successful future.

Pediatricians can support parents to organize playgroups beginning at an early preschool age of approximately 2.5 to 3 years, when many children move from parallel play to cooperative play in the process of socialization.

Pediatricians can advocate for developing “safe spaces” in underresourced neighborhoods, perhaps by opening school, library, or community facilities to be used by children and their parents after school hours and on weekends.

Pediatricians can educate themselves about appropriate resources in their own community that foster play and healthy child development and have this information available to share with parents.

Pediatricians should support children having an academic schedule that is appropriately challenging and extracurricular exposures that offer appropriate balance. What is appropriate has to be determined individually for each child on the basis of their unique needs, skills, and temperament, not on the basis of what may be overly pressurized or competitive community standards or a perceived need to gain college admissions.

Pediatricians should encourage parents to allow children to explore a variety of interests in a balanced way without feeling pressured to excel in each area. Pediatricians should encourage parents to avoid conveying the unrealistic expectation that each young person needs to excel in multiple areas to be considered successful or prepared to compete in the world. In parallel, they should promote balance in those youth who are strongly encouraged to become expert in only 1 area (eg, a particular sport or musical instrument) to the detriment of having the opportunity to explore other areas of interest.

As parents choose child care and early education programs for their children, pediatricians can reinforce the importance of choosing settings that offer more than “academic preparedness.” They should be guided to also pay attention to whether the settings attend to the social and emotional developmental needs of the children.

Pediatricians can join with other child professionals and parents to advocate for educational settings that promote optimal academic, cognitive, physical, social, and emotional development for children and youth.

Pediatricians should assess their patients for the manifestations of stress, anxiety, and depression in family-centered interviews for children and privately conducted interviews with adolescents.

Because stress often manifests with physical sensations, pediatricians should be highly sensitized to stress as an underlying cause of somatic illness.

Pediatricians should refer to appropriate mental health professionals when children or their parents show signs of excessive stress, anxiety, or depression.

Play is a cherished part of childhood that offers children important developmental benefits and parents the opportunity to fully engage with their children. However, multiple forces are interacting to effectively reduce many children’s ability to reap the benefits of play. As we strive to create the optimal developmental milieu for children, it remains imperative that play be included along with academic and social-enrichment opportunities and that safe environments be made available to all children. Additional research is needed to explore the appropriate balance of play, academic enrichment, and organized activities for children with different temperaments and social, emotional, intellectual, and environmental needs.

Donald L. Shifrin, MD, Chairperson

Daniel D. Broughton, MD

Benard P. Dreyer, MD

Kenneth R. Ginsburg, MD

Regina M. Milteer, MD

Deborah A. Mulligan, MD

Kathleen G. Nelson, MD

Tanya R. Altmann, MD

Media Resource Team

Michael Brody, MD

American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry

Michelle L. Shuffett, MD

Brian Wilcox, PhD

American Psychological Association

Carolyn Kolbaba

Veronica L. Noland

Marjorie Tharp

William L. Coleman, MD, Chairperson

Marian F. Earls, MD

Edward Goldson, MD

Cheryl L. Hausman, MD

Benjamin S. Siegel, MD

Thomas J. Sullivan, MD

J. Lane Tanner, MD

Ronald T. Brown, PhD

Society of Pediatric Psychology

Mary Jo Kupst, Phd, MD

Sally E.A. Longstaffe, MD

Canadian Paediatric Society

Janet Mims, MS, CPNP

National Association of Pediatric Nurse Practitioners

Frances J. Wren

George J. Cohen, MD

Karen Smith

All clinical reports from the American Academy of Pediatrics automatically expire 5 years after publication unless reaffirmed, revised, or retired at or before that time.

The guidance in this report does not indicate an exclusive course of treatment or serve as a standard of medical care. Variations, taking into account individual circumstances, may be appropriate.

This guidance is offered by the American Academy of Pediatrics and, therefore, is targeted to pediatricians. Other health professionals who serve children and adolescents, including other physicians, pediatric and family nurse practitioners, and physician assistants, are welcome to consider incorporating these guidelines into practice.

Play Beyond the Kids

As a clinician specializing in working with children and an advocate/practitioner of Play Therapy, I must applaud the alert this article provides about the risks of the lost learning opportunities and the “unintended message from this hurried, intense preparation for adulthood” of our increasingly less ‘playful’ society. Research has for many years recognized the cognitive, emotional, social, and behavioral benefits of providing children with unstructured, child-centered play time; HOWEVER, as important as play is for children, it is (at least) nearly equally important for adults. Popular phrases are popular because of their resonance of truth and what is it we do when we are struggling with the challenges of life? What is the process we engage in to reach a resolution? We “play with an idea”!! Most adults do so in their thoughts alone whereas others also interact with their environment as part of this process. I suggest that this devaluation and denial of play’s importance to adult health is a second major contributant to the general devaluation by our society of the power and importance of play. I would contend that play is, even for adults, the foundation of contentment and achievement. We need to advocate for adults, just as for children, to engage the world with that ‘playfulness’ that allows us to see the many possibilities and options each of our life experiences exposes. We need to remember what these people knew:

G.B. Shaw: “We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing”

R. von Oech: “Necessity may be the mother of invention, but play is certainly the father.”

G.K. Chesterson:“The true object of all human life is play.”

Respectfully submitted: T.G. Borkan, PhD-Psychologist

Conflict of Interest:

None declared

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SYSTEMATIC REVIEW article

Nature play in early childhood education: a systematic review and meta ethnography of qualitative research.

• 1 Department of Education, Thomas More University of Applied Sciences, Rotterdam, Netherlands
• 2 Department of Educational and Family Studies, Faculty of Behavioural and Movement Sciences, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands
• 3 LEARN! Research Institute, Faculty of Behavioural and Movement Sciences, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands
• 4 Department of Education, University of Applied Sciences Leiden, Leiden, Netherlands

Play in nature-based environments in childhood education has positive benefits for child development. Although previous reviews showed the benefits of play in nature-based environments for child development they did not attempt to understand how and why nature-based environments contribute to play quality. This review aims to explore the value of play in nature-based environments compared to non-nature-based environments for developmental outcomes of young children (2–8 year). We searched for studies that investigated the relation between play and nature-based environments on the databases PsycINFO, ERIC, and Web of Science. Inclusion/exclusion criteria were: (1) the study focused on play in/on a nature based environment, (2) the study included participants between the age of 2–8 years, (3) it was an empirical study, (4) the study was conducted in the context of early childhood education (ECE), and (5) the study included participants without special needs or disabilities. Using these criteria we selected 28 qualitative studies with an overall sample size of N = 998 children aged 2–8 years. The studies were synthesized using an adaptation of Noblit and Hare’s meta-ethnographic approach. Three overarching themes were found: (1) the aspects of play quality that are related to nature-based environments, (2) the aspects of nature-based environments that support play, and (3) the aspects of teacher-child interactions that contribute to nature play quality. The meta themes resonate with play theories and theories of the restorative value of nature. We draw on the qualitative data to refine and extend these theories, and to come up with a definition of the concept “nature play.” This systematic review also sets a base for future research on play interventions in nature-based environments. We argue that (1) research will benefit from thoroughly conceptualizing the role of play in the development of young children, (2) using the affordances theory research will benefit from moving beyond the individual play actions as a unit of analysis, and (3) from an educational perspective it is important to shift the focus of nature play to its benefits for children’s cognitive development.

Introduction

In early childhood education (ECE), play and learning are inextricably intertwined ( Hirsh-Pasek, 2008 ). Play is often considered as a context for young children’s learning and development, and can take place indoors (e.g., in a classroom) as well as outdoors (e.g., in a nature-based environment). However, outdoor play in ECE is often done for its value to relax and recover from the important play and learning time that takes place indoors. As a result, in ECE play in outdoor settings is not often valued for its potential benefits for children’s learning development ( Miranda et al., 2017 ). Recently, many studies have focused on play and learning in nature-based environments. Based on these studies, this review aims to explore the value of play in nature based environments in ECE. The research for this review was guided by the following question: what is the value of play in nature-based environments compared to non-nature-based environments for developmental outcomes of young children (2–8 year).

Play as a context for child development, three perspectives

In most cultural communities, play is a major aspect of children’s life ( Roopnarine, 2012 ). Most play researchers agree on the importance of play in early childhood. In fact, play is seen as a key element of child development because it is the context for the development of cognition (including language), motor skills and social-emotional competence ( Rubin et al., 1983 ; Golinkoff et al., 2006 ; Nathan and Pellegrini, 2010 ).

To affirm the importance of play, in Article 31 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child ( United Nations, 1989 ) play is viewed as a fundamental need and right of children. This need for and right to play needs to be respected in the lives of young children. Consequently, article 31 challenges us to understand play from the perspective of children’s needs and rights.

Before play ended up as a fundamental right in the Children’s Rights Treaty, the critical role of play has been studied by many scholars using different theoretical frameworks. According to Wynberg et al. (2022) , roughly three theoretical perspectives can be distinguished. First, Piaget describes in Play, Dreams and Imitation in Childhood ( Piaget, 2013 ), how children incorporate objects and events of the world around them in their play, creating a mental model of the world. In this genetic epistemology perspective, children’s level of cognitive development is reflected in types of play (functional and constructive play, symbolic/fantasy play and games with rules). Piaget’s theory of cognitive development suggests four phases in which intelligence changes as children grow. For early childhood the first three are relevant: children (0–12 year) grow from sensorimotor intelligence (e.g., children understand the external world only by sensing and touching objects that are present), into preoperational intelligence (e.g., during this period children are thinking at a symbolic level but are not yet using cognitive operations, they still need to act in the external world to perform these operations) into concrete operational intelligence (e.g., children can use logic and transform, combine and separate concepts on a mental level) In this way, children’s play can be classified on the basis of their cognitive development, but children’s play is not seen as a context for new development. Therefore, this theoretical perspective does not explain how children’s play quality and the physical environment are related.

Secondly, in contrast to Piaget’s view that play reflects the actual level of children’s cognitive development, in Vygotsky’s cultural historical activity theory (CHAT), play is considered a social activity in which children meet and interact with the social cultural environment. With help of parents, educators and peers, children gain in play a driving force for further cognitive, social-emotional, and motor development ( Nicolopoulou, 1993 ).

Leontiev advanced Vygotsky’s theory by differentiating play actions from play activity. Play actions are performed to achieve a single goal. A play activity is a set of related play actions that meet children’s need to get to know the world around them and be able to contribute to it. Their play activity derives its meaning from the satisfaction of fulfilling this need, which is the motive for their activity. However, the goal of a play action does not necessary coincide with the motive of the activity. In fact, the single goal of an action often comes apart from this motive. For instance, children in a nature-based environment collect sticks (action) to build a pretend bonfire (activity) to fulfill their need to get the feel of making a bonfire (not because they were cold or needed to cook).

Within CHAT, tool use is an important aspect of play activity. Tools help children to fulfill their need and these (symbolic) tools link the action (collecting sticks) to their motive (getting to know bonfires by pretending to make one). In other words, children are motivated by these tools. In the play context, tools have agency to achieve goals ( Bodrova and Leong, 2015 ; Wynberg et al., 2022 ) and motivation to use the tools is what makes children act, think and develop ( Nicolopoulou, 1993 ; Deci and Ryan, 2008 ; Bakhurst, 2009 ). As a result of engaging in play, the perceptual world–i.e., the world the child meets through perceptually interacting with it–becomes a conceptual world of meaning and value. In this process, the child develops the mental power to understand the (meaning of) the world that surrounds him/her. The perceptual world invites or affords play activity ( Bakhurst, 2009 ). In the example of children building a bonfire, the sticks mediate between the perceptual and conceptual world, children use their mental power to imagine the real fire and the heat that comes from it, while building the bonfire and gathering around it. Although CHAT accounts for the role of the physical environment in children’s play, the environment is mostly viewed as situated in a socio-cultural environment.

Thirdly, Gopnik (2020) describes childhood from an evolutionary perspective as a time for the human mind to explore the unpredictable range of human possibilities. To develop the capacity to navigate the perceptual world, in other words to get the feel or hang of it, children actually have to feel the world and hang around in it. During childhood, children are especially prone to explorative and “active” learning. While involved in messy and intuitive play actions, children gather new information about the world around them, learning and adapting without using adult intelligence, such as planning or focused attention. Instead, they get involved with all their senses to imagine even far-away and unlikely hypotheses, such as using objects during play in a creative way, not being hindered by experience of the usual function of the object ( Gopnik and Wellman, 2012 ; Schulz, 2012 ; Wente et al., 2019 ). Within the evolutionary perspective childhood is an extended time for exploration of an environment that is variable, with a mix of predictability and unpredictability. In the same way as the CHAT, within the evolutionary perspective the focus is on cultural learning, i.e., obtaining information from other humans and not so much from the interaction with the nature-based environment.

Although these three perspectives differ in focus and methodology, they all acknowledge play as important for child development. During play children find out the meaning of the world that surrounds them, including the physical world, and learn how they can interact with it. In this way they develop as human beings with cognitive, social, emotional, and motor competencies.

Defining play

In this review, we focus on play and how the quality of play might be supported by the physical environment where children play. Therefore, we need a definition to distinguish play behavior from other behavior. As we have seen in the literature on play there is no defining key factor that connects all actions that are recognized as play actions. In the Oxford handbook of the development of play , Burghardt (2012) comes up with a set of five criteria that characterize the play of all animals: (1) It is not fully functional in the form in which it is expressed; play actions can look functional but the actions do not contribute to survival; (2) It is spontaneous, voluntary, intentional, pleasurable, and done for the sake of playing; (3) Play differs from functional behavior in structure or timing in at least one respect: incomplete, awkward, and precocious; (4) It is performed repeatedly but not in a stereotyped way; and (5) It is initiated when the animal is “relaxed”: well fed, warm and safe. These five criteria partly overlap with the dispositions described by Rubin et al. (1983) . They define play as: (1) intrinsically motivated; (2) for the sake of play(ing); (3) deriving pleasure from it, and; (4) having the freedom to modify the rules within the play ( Rubin et al., 1983 ). For this review, we will combine the aforementioned criteria and include all behaviors that can be classified as a child’s interaction with the environment, while being highly involved, intrinsically motivated, deriving pleasure from it, and having the freedom to modify the rules (cf., Rubin et al., 1983 ).

The quality of the physical environment in relation to play quality

The physical environment where children play is part of their play. The value of explorative and active play is directly related to both the complexity of the physical environment and the opportunity to incorporate the environment in play ( Gopnik, 2020 ). In other words, an environment not only serves as a play décor, but it also serves as a place that affords play. For example, findings from systematic reviews consistently demonstrate that a nature-based environment affords different play behavior compared to non-nature-based environments ( Gill, 2014 ; Dankiw et al., 2020 ; Zare Sakhvidi et al., 2022 ). How can this be explained?

The affordances theory of Gibson (2014) is a way to describe an environment in terms of the distinctive features that offer possibilities for play behavior for a child or a group of children. An affordance is something that refers to both the environment and the skills of a child at that moment. The affordance theory helps to understand why nature-based environments differ from non-nature-based environments. For instance, a tree can afford leaning for a 1-year old, hiding for a 5-year old and climbing for a 7-year old. Heft (1988) and Kyttä (2002) advanced the affordances theory into a functional taxonomy, by describing the distinctive functional properties of an environment, properties that are both objectively real and psychological relevant. It is a way to describe the setting, the person (the child with her skills at that moment) and the action as a “system.” According to Heft (1988) , the functional possibilities for meaningful play that children perceive in nature-based environments are different from the possibilities they perceive in non-nature-based environments.

In addition to the affordances theory to describe the assets of nature-based environments for play, two complementary theories from research on nature-based environments are related to aspects of play (quality) as well: the Stress Recovery Theory (SRT) and the Attention Restoration Theory (ART) ( Ulrich, 1983 ; Kaplan, 1995 ; Berto, 2014 ). SRT is a psycho-evolutionary theory that states that since humans evolved over a long period in natural environments, people are to some extent physiologically and perhaps psychologically better adapted to nature-based environments as to non-nature based environments. ART is a psycho-functionalist theory that states that humans have an innate predisposition to pay attention and respond positively to natural content (e.g., vegetation and water) and to settings that helped survival during evolution. Both theories state that nature-based-environments are more restorative than non-nature-based environments; according to SRT, nature-based environments relieve physiological stress whereas according to ART, nature-based environments restore mental fatigue. In this way nature-based environments contribute to play quality as we look at the criteria for play quality mentioned above: a child can only initiate play when it is relaxed, and play asks for involvement and attention.

Defining nature-based environments

As we see how the quality of the play activity of a child is intrinsically linked to the nature-based environment, we need a definition to distinguish a nature-based environment from other environments. As it is difficult to find one key factor to define play, there is also no such key factor that connects all environments recognized as nature-based environments. To describe such an environment the affordances theory of Greeno (1994) , Gibson (2014) , and Lerstrup and Konijnendijk van den Bosch (2017) makes it possible to look at an environment in terms of affordances. He described five affording features of an environment: (1) places, (2) attached and (3) detached objects, (4) substances, and (5) events. In this review, we use these features to distinguish nature-based environments from non-nature-based environments. Nature-based environments (1) have a surface (place) that is the basis for growth of living elements, (2) provide possibilities for interacting with living, non-man-made elements like plants, trees, and insects, (3) these living elements “provide” loose materials to play with, such as sticks, seeds, feathers, and shells (attached and detached “objects”), (4) non-living elements are part of a nature-based environment as these elements are connected to the biosphere of the living elements such as water, rocks, and soil (substances), and (5) weather elements such as fresh air, rain, wind and sunshine, or seasonal elements such as blooming or decay are the features that ensure change (events) ( Gill, 2014 ; Chawla, 2015 ; Dankiw et al., 2020 ).

The role of the teacher

For this review, we also investigated the role the teacher has in designing and/or choosing the play environment. The motivation and the capacity to be taught by the world is not totally innate. It needs to be nurtured and sustained by adults. Early childhood teachers are part of the play context and have a role in mediating between the child and the world. In this context they also have a role in the acquisition and use of language during play. While the perceptual world with its structure and rules becomes a conceptual world in play the acquisition and use of language makes it possible to store the concepts in the mind ( Huizinga, 2014 ). Most play theories agree on the role early childhood teachers have in guarding children’s play, enriching children’s play environment, and protecting children for dangers, but there is considerable debate on the question if and how adults should participate in children’s play activities ( van Oers, 2013 ).

Reason for this review

Reasoning from play theories and the environmental psychologist theories we might expect that nature-based play environments, as an indivisible part of children’s play actions, can contribute to children’s cognitive, social-emotional, and motor development.

In the last decade, many studies have been conducted into the relation between a healthy development of children and engagement in nature-based environments. Most of these studies have focused on health and physical activity. The reviews of Gill (2014) , Chawla (2015) , and more recently Dankiw et al. (2020) have provided overviews of the benefits of nature for children’s development. These reviews were focused on children between 1 and 12 years old. First, the systematic review of Gill showed the benefits of children’s engagement with nature on mental health as well as physical activity. Second, Chawla’s work was not so much a systematic review but a thorough reflection on research into the benefits of nature contact for children. She placed the research in the context of changing research approaches, thus showing how different research questions and methods shape our understanding of the benefits of access to nature for children. Third, Dankiw’s review investigated the impacts of children’s engagement with unstructured nature play, finding that unstructured nature play may have a positive impact on different aspects of child development. By focusing on developmental outcomes of quantitative studies, this study did not attempt to understand how or why unstructured nature play is related to these positive outcomes. A systematic review of qualitative studies can synthesize findings and advance the knowledge base of how nature-based environments contribute to play quality. Synthesizing the fragmented literature will contribute to a useful resource for guiding future research on this topic and inform early childhood educational practices, valuing nature-based play environments as intrinsically linked to play quality.

We systematically reviewed studies into play in nature-based environments in ECE. These studies may contribute to our understanding of the experiences of children and teachers in ECE when going outside to play in nature- based environments. Moreover, these experiences set out a basis for understanding the possibilities of playing in nature-based environments for cognitive, social-emotional, and motor development in ECE. We reviewed studies in early childhood educational settings since in these settings play is an important part of the curriculum.

The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) guidelines ( Page et al., 2021 ) was adopted for the purposes of the present review. A PRISMA checklist is provided in Supplementary File 1 .

Inclusion and exclusion criteria

Articles were included if they met the following selection criteria:

(1) The study focused on play in/on a nature based environment (studies were excluded if the exposure to nature was not specified as “interaction” or “play” or if the environment where the children played did not match our criteria of nature based environments as stated in our introduction).

(2) The study included participants between the age of 2–8 years.

(3) It was an empirical study.

(4) The study was conducted in the context of ECE (studies were excluded if they were not conducted in a center for ECE, such as day care centers and preschools).

(5) The study included participants without special needs or disabilities.

Databases and search query

Databases PsycINFO, ERIC, and Web of Science were used to identify studies that investigated the relation between play and nature-based environments. To ensure the quality of the studies we only included empirical studies that were published in peer-reviewed journals. Furthermore studies written in English that were published between May 1995 and 2022 were included. We combined keywords on the two major concepts of this review: play and nature-based environments. To ensure a comprehensive search the following keywords were used for play or activity: manipulative play, object play, relational play, block play, loose part play, outdoor play, free play, unstructured play, rough and tumble play, explorative play, creative play, construction play, physical play, gross motor play, role play, pretend play, social play, imaginative play, socio dramatic play, social pretend play, as if play or physical activity, unstructured activity, explorative activity, physical activity, construction activity, and gross motor activity. For the nature-based environment, the following keywords were used: green or natural environment, playground, landscape playscape setting area or space, school garden, school forest, school wetland, school wilderness, school grassland, greenery, garden, forest, wetland, wilderness, grassland, tree cover, tree canopy, biodiverse school ground, and nature based. Boolean operators were used to ensure that each possible combination of keywords was included. The search query is provided in Supplementary File 2 .

Selection procedure

The primary search resulted in a selection of 5,961 articles. Next, duplicates were removed, and titles, abstracts, and keywords of the remaining articles were manually screened. Many studies in this first selection were either in the field of environmental science or health, and did not concern playing children. After removing the studies that obviously did not meet our selection criteria we assessed 166 articles for eligibility. We excluded 107 studies for reasons of age. We also screened studies with participants between 2 and 8 years as well as participants beyond this age. We did not include them because it was impossible to decide if the results were specific for the group of children between 2 and 8 years. A random selection of twenty articles of the 166 articles were checked with two researchers, both members of a research group performing a systematic review in the field of ECE. They checked if the article met the criteria of our definition of play and nature based environment as stated in our introduction. Quality appraisal was made through the Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) Critical Appraisal Tool for Qualitative Studies ( Lockwood et al., 2020 ) (see Supplementary File 2 ). Using this tool we were surprised by the innovative and creative ways these studies adapted to respect the voice of young children. We ended up with a final selection of 28 studies with an overall sample size of N = 998 children aged 3–8 years. See Figure 1 for an overview of the study selection process.

Figure 1. Study selection process.

Data extraction and synthesis

The selected studies were analyzed and synthesized in four steps based on Noblit and Hare’s meta-ethnography method and adapted for this study ( Agar, 1990 ; Noblit and Hare, 2012 ; Nye et al., 2016 ): Step 1: The studies were read and re-read to gain a detailed understanding of their theories and concepts and their findings according to the following categories: (1) Design/method, (2) theories and conceptualization, and (3) outcomes. Supplementary Table 1 gives an overview of the 28 studies, specified according to these categories. To retain the meaning of the primary concepts within individual studies and to define the relations between these concepts we developed codes regarding the experiences of children and teachers while playing in nature-based environments during ECE (i.e., authors’ interpretation of the data and “second order constructs”).

Step 2: In order to determine how the studies were related, the initial codes were grouped according to key aspects of (1) play quality, (2) the nature-based environment, and (3) the teacher-child interactions. These key concepts from individual studies were synthesized, which resulted in lists of overarching themes for each of the three groups (see Figure 2 ).

Figure 2. Meta-synthesis of key concepts into three themes and two Meta-themes.

Step 3: Studies were translated into one another to produce “meta-themes” across the different aspects of play in nature-based environments. To draw out the findings under each meta-theme, some studies were chosen as “index” papers from which we extracted findings. These index papers stood out in terms of their conceptual richness. Their findings were then compared to and contrasted with the findings of a second study, and the resulting synthesis of these two studies were then contrasted with a third study, and so forth. This is referred to as “reciprocal translation” ( Noblit and Hare, 2012 ; Nye et al., 2016 ). For example Lerstrup and Konijnendijk van den Bosch (2017) advanced Gibsons and Hefts theory of affordances and functional classes of outdoor features into “key activities” afforded by classes of the outdoor environment. These new concepts were used for the translation of concepts from other papers that were related but not conceptualized in this way.

Step 4: The meta-themes from step 3 were synthesized according to aspects of quality of ECE. Via interpretive reading of these meta-themes we developed a “line of argument” synthesis regarding the value of play in nature-based environments for improving developmental outcomes of ECE. This is presented in the discussion.

Meta method analysis

During step 1 we analyzed the study designs of the 28 included studies. The studies into play in nature-based environments in ECE all aimed to get more insight into the relation between children’s play and nature-based environments in ECE. The studies aimed to study a myriad of educational outcomes, such as physical activity, cognitive, social-emotional, and motor development as well as health. The relevance of these studies is motivated by concerns about changes in the practice of playing outside as healthy practice for young children’s physical and mental wellbeing. Opportunities for outdoor play have diminished drastically since the mid-20th century, due to cultural changes such as parental control and fear, inadequate access to outdoor playgrounds, screen time and the focus on cognitive development in ECE.

The studies included in the present review can all be characterized as small-scale studies using observations of play behavior in nature-based environments and interviews with teachers and children to explore their experiences of playing in nature-based environment. Participating early childhood settings in the studies were sampled based on their outdoor play practices including the design of their playgrounds. These studies can be divided into two groups: one that compared play on a nature-based (part of the) playground to play on (part of the) traditional designed playground and one that compared forest school practice to indoor/outdoor classroom practice.

In all studies, except for one, the sample size was given and ranged between N = 4 and N = 198, with a total of N = 998 and a mean of N = 36. Twelve of the studies had a sample size of < N = 20, 13 had a sample size between N = 20 and N = 100, one study had a sample size of N = 198, and one had a sample of teachers N = 63 teachers. One study did not specify the sample size. The relatively small sample sizes of most studies can be explained by the fact that the studies had an explorative and qualitative research design.

Seventeen studies used play observations describing different aspects of the relation between children’s play behavior and nature-based outdoor environments, to get more insight in how children use outdoor environments during outdoor play activities. In most studies these observations were characterized as phenomenological, ethnographical, and participatory. Blanchet-Cohen and Elliot (2011) for instance described how participatory observation was a primary method of listening to young children in unmediated ways to get insight in how the children used the nature based environment. In the studies of Moore et al. (2019) and Dyment and O’Connell (2013) observation was done by using event sampling or taking scans with an observation tool, making it easier to observe a higher number of participants.

In the studies where children’s views on their outdoor play experiences were explored, a mosaic approach was used to get insight into the views of young children, using arts-based data techniques while interviewing children. These studies were inventive and respected the way young participants are able to express their own views. For example, in the study of Streelasky (2019) , drawings, paintings, and photographs were used during child interviews to support them in expressing their views. In the study of Moore et al. (2019) , the children gave a tour around the yard to express their views on the value of the nature-based environment. Four studies also collected data from teachers, to explore their views and their interaction with children when playing outside in nature-based environments.

Although most studies used open observations to investigate the play activities of the children, some used validated instruments, such as the system for Observing Play and Leisure Activity in Youth (SOPLAY). This system is used by Fjørtoft (2001) as well as by Dyment and O’Connell (2013) and is a way to label children’s activities, for instance to assess the diversity of their activities, but it does not capture how these activities are related to the play environment. Another way to assess the quality of the play activities is in terms of involvement, freedom, and joy. In two studies, the Leuven Child Involvement Scale was used to analyse children’s play in terms of involvement and joy. Other studies ( Luchs and Fikus, 2013 , 2018 ; Morrissey et al., 2017 ) used the duration of the play episodes as a measure of the quality of the play: The longer children played, the higher the quality of their play episode.

In three studies instruments were used to assess the play potential of the nature-based outdoor environment. Mårtensson et al. (2009) , for example, used the outdoor play environment categories (OPEC) tool, which gives a higher score to environments with large integrated spaces with plentiful greenery and varied topography compared to small areas where open spaces, play structures and vegetation are placed in separate parts of the environment. Richardson and Murray (2016) used the early childhood environment rating scale (ECERS) to assess the nature-based environment, but this tool is developed to assess indoor classrooms and is not adapted for outdoor spaces.

Four of the five studies that also used quantitative data, measured children’s physical activity in a quantitative way using accelerometers, and one study measured if features of the natural environment correlated with measures of inattentiveness.

Data analysis techniques were specified in all of the studies. In most of them (24 studies) comparative thematic analysis was used as data analysis technique. In the five mixed method studies, several statistical tests were used as well.

Details about strategies to address validity were not often mentioned, but four of the studies used focus groups of teachers to discuss the finding of the studies and to perform a member check.

Meta concept and theory analysis

During step 2, we synthesized key concepts in the studies. The studies in this review were selected based on two conceptual criteria, one of them was the nature-based environment , the other concept was play (or aspects of play). Most studies used a specific theoretical framework and/or a philosophical perspective to explain and understand the expected relation between nature-based environments and play. These theories help us to conceptualize about and generalize the findings within the specific studies and help us to understand the limits of these generalizations.

Seven studies used a specific theory in which the concept of play was embedded. Most of these studies used Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory, from which play can be defined as a mode of activity. However, the concept “activity” was mostly used as “the things children do” or, in other words, children’s actions. Certainly, the theory was not used to place play in the larger cultural-historical context. Other studies used a criterion- based definition of play, such as it was “free” or child initiated. For example, in the study of Brussoni et al. (2017) play was described in terms of activities chosen by the children. Different aspects of these activities in nature-based environments were explained, such as hierarchy between peers during play, the complexity of the play or the duration of play episodes. Other studies defined play as consisting of different play categories, some of them cognitively more complex. For example, in the study of Dyment and O’Connell (2013) play was described using five categories: functional, constructive, symbolic, self-focused, and talking, whereas the constructive and symbolic category was also coded as creative and imaginative. In the studies that focused on a specific type of play, such as physical play, risky play, or sociodramatic play, it was easier to extract the specific play concept. Morrissey et al. (2017) for instance, used a detailed description of the concept of sociodramatic play: involving two or more players, providing a crucial everyday context in which children are motivated to engage socially with peers, and practice skills in communication, negotiation, symbolic, and creative thinking.

Nature based environment

Twelve studies used Gibson’s affordances theory to distinguish nature-based environments from non-nature-based environments. Lerstrup and Konijnendijk van den Bosch (2017) , for instance, used the affordances approach to operationalize how play actions are afforded by a specific feature of the environment and a specific user (a child of the preschool participating in their study) of that feature. In this way, the environment is not viewed as a separate object, but as something children take with them in their own experiences. Sandseter (2009) assessed how a nature-based environment affords risky play for pre-schoolers, using the concept of affordances, but adding the role of the educator to the equation.

Some studies used the concept “play opportunities” instead of affordances, to operationalize the relation between children’s play behavior and a nature-based environment. Canning (2013) , for example, made observation notes of the play behavior during den-making sessions and focused on the conversations between children to explore how the environment offers opportunities for creative thinking. In the den-making context the nature-based environment is an integrated part of children’s play experience in the same way as the environment in the affordances approach. In short, in most of the studies the relation between nature-based and children’s play behavior is operationalized as observed activities afforded by nature-based outdoor environments.

Although all of the studies aimed to explore if and how (aspects of) children’s play behavior is afforded by nature-based outdoor environments, there is no generally accepted description of the concept “nature-based environment” and it is hardly operationalized in most of the studies. Fourteen studies ( Supplementary Table 1 nrs. 2, 3, 6, 8, 11, 12, 14, 19, 20, 23, 24, 25, 27, and 28) used a comparator outdoor play environment to compare the nature-based environment with. The comparator environment that was referred to as “traditional” or “usual,” always contained man-made or manufactured elements such as a climbing structure and a sandpit. Another similarity in the description of elements that the non-nature-based environment consisted of was the character of the surface: it was paved, concrete, or hard. This is a kind of surface that afforded functional play: riding bikes, running around. These comparator environments can serve as a starting point to describe the (operationalized) characteristic elements of the nature-based environments in the studies.

In contrast, the elements of the nature-based environment were in the first place described as elements that were not man-made and do change, grow or die (even) without the intervention of humans. For instance, in the study of Brussoni et al. (2017) the “seven C’s system” for assessing the quality of the outdoor environment was used. One of the C’s stands for change: How does the play environment change over time? Second, although nature based environments can change, grow or die without human intervention, at the same time the elements of the nature-based environment are more sensitive to human intervention than man-made elements in an a non-nature based environment, for instance a climbing structure. Therefore, nature-based environments ask for care when playing with and in it, which interferes with the children’s play actions. Third, the surface of the nature-based environment is referred to as “biodiverse, soft, and diverse.” An example of this is the study of Puhakka et al. (2019) . In this study, the greening of day-care yards consisted not only of adding green elements, but also of replacing the complete surface area of a day-care yard by forest floor, sod, peat blocks, and planters for vegetable growing, making the surface more biodiverse.

Related to the surface as an important element of the nature-based environment, in many studies natural loose parts found in or on this surface were a vital element of the nature-based environment affording specific play activities. Harwood and Collier (2017) even went a step further by not operationalizing the observed activities of the children afforded by nature-based outdoor environments, but by operationalizing the activities that the natural loose parts performed in the child’s play narrative. In this view, the agency of sticks in children’s multi modal texts was afforded by the children. This post-humanist perspective (as they called it) was interesting as it described how the agency of the children was enriched by focusing on the agency of the stick. To acknowledge the agency of nature-based environments might be a key factor in describing the special way it affords play, compared to other environments.

Three studies used a theory of place. These theories account for the fact that a child’s identity is nurtured and shaped by place ( Gruenewald, 2003 ; Adams and Savahl, 2017 ; Crippen, 2017 ). Children have strong attachments to the places they play in and actively construct places for imaginative play ( Hart, 1979 ).

Meta data analysis

In step 3 we compared and contrasted the key concepts found in the studies to one another to establish overarching themes (reciprocal translation). Most of the studies showed that aspects of children’s play quality are related to aspects of nature-based environments which might lead to benefits for child development if mediated in certain ways by early childhood educators. However, this relationship is complex and it is not easy to isolate the elements of the physical environment from all other factors that influence play quality. In order to find how the outcomes of studies were related, we grouped the studies according to (1) aspects of play quality (2) aspects of nature-based environment, and (3) aspects of teacher-child interactions.

Theme 1: Aspects of play quality: play actions, play attitude, and cognitive play

All studies pointed out that there was a relation between children’s play actions and nature-based environments. Firstly, compared to a non-nature-based environment, there was more variety in play categories while children played in nature-based environments. In the studies, a non-nature-based environment mostly afforded a more physical type of play whereas nature-based environments afforded more diversity in type of play. For instance, Luchs and Fikus (2018) observed that children showed play patterns in which they combined different play types. Six studies reported more socio-dramatic play in the nature-based environment. In the study of Coates and Pimlott-Wilson (2019) , for example, children reported that the forest site where they played offered them opportunities to make things and be creative, and enact their own stories.

Secondly, the vast majority of the studies reported how play in nature-based environments was related to children’s social-emotional attitude during play. Interesting were the studies that included children’s own perspectives on their play experiences in nature-based environments: Children often reported joy, wellbeing, and enthusiasm. For instance, in the study of Moore et al. (2019) they included “stories of agency” in which children demonstrated a strong sense of comfort and self-confidence with the nature-based environment, by telling about the freedom they felt to make footprints anywhere or to cool down in the grass. This sense of confidence was also found in the studies that observed more risky play in nature-based environments, or a higher degree of risk afforded by nature-based environment. In the study of Mcclain and Vandermaas-Peeler (2015) , the degree of “wilderness” of the environment (a creek compared to a river) afforded the degree of challenge and risk in the observed play behavior. Some studies emphasized the possibility of the nature-based environment to sustain the play story, resulting in longer play episodes, compared to episodes on the non-nature-based playground. But also in using more play space, as the nature-based environment helped them to meander from one area to another. This relates to the studies that pointed to more explorative play behavior or higher involvement and engagement during play in nature-based environment. For example, McCree et al. (2018) found high scores of involvement during play sessions on a forest school site.

Thirdly, besides the fact that playing in a nature-based environment interacts with how children play in such an environment, five studies described how this is related to children’s cognitive development. In early childhood, cognitive development as an outcome of play activities is highly dependent on how much a child is involved in play and the extent to which the child experiences wellbeing. Seven studies observed explorative play behavior, problem solving and creativity and related this to the nature-based environment. For example, in the study of Puhakka et al. (2019) , increasing biodiversity and the amount of greenery of school yards led to more explorative play, more multi-sensory play experiences, and better pre academic skills (i.e., counting) than before the intervention. In the longitudinal study of McCree et al. (2018) an improvement in academic attainment (i.e., reading, writing, and maths) was seen after 3 years of attending weekly forest school sessions compared to their non-participating peers at school. Richardson and Murray’s (2016) study was the only study that measured richer language use during forest school sessions, in terms of noun diversity, and the use of adjectives and verbs.

To summarize this step of reciprocal translation: when children play in nature-based environments, the quality of their experiences during play is improved. This is shown by a greater diversity in play actions while at the same time the duration of the play episode was extended, compared to their play in non-nature-based environments. Children’s involvement and wellbeing during play was intensified while playing in nature-based environments. Furthermore, they were not only physical active but also used different cognitive skills in their play.

Theme 2: Play aspects of nature-based environments

Although in theme 1 we showed that playing in nature-based environments relates to higher play quality, it was not yet connected to specific aspects of the nature-based environment. Theme 2 reveals that this higher play quality is connected to specific aspect of the nature-based environment. Most of the studies indicated a clear relation between nature-based environments and playing with loose or fixed natural materials. Playing with loose materials often leads to construction play. For instance, in the study of Puhakka et al. (2019) the researchers observed that children were doing more arts and crafts with the loose natural materials. In many other studies we reviewed, sticks were mentioned as natural materials with special interest. For instance, in Canning’s (2013) study children used sticks to lay out a ladder and to pretend to climb in it. In the study of Harwood and Collier (2017) the sticks even had agency, for instance they were friends carried and cared for by the child, being able to change the play narrative of the child. In four studies play with small creatures was mentioned (e.g., insects, worms, and snails), as well as care for plants and vegetation. These studies also pointed to the importance of the notion of abundance of natural materials as opposed to the notion of scarcity (for example of toys) in non-nature-based environments. Zamani (2013) described how the living character of nature-based zones sparked curiosity and wonder, and invited play with critters and plants. Also in the study of Wight et al. (2015) the fact that nature “lives” made children caring for it. In three studies the notion of place was connected to the possibility to immerse or hide in it, for instance a shrub or high grass, or to offering objects (leaves and sticks) that can be used to transform the space into a place of imagination for sociodramatic play.

Reciprocal translation led us to conclude that when children played in nature-based environments, specific aspects of the nature-based environment, such as the abundance of materials and substances to play with might be connected to quality of children’s play activities, which is related to the cognitive outcomes mentioned above. At the same time the nature-based environment owns agency in play, “it/he/she plays back, nature instigates play.

Theme 3: Teacher-child interactions

In most of the studies in this review, children’s play in nature-based environments was child initiated, not teacher led. However, the role of the teacher is part of the children’s play environment and in four studies this teacher’s role in nature-based environment was specifically investigated ( Mawson, 2014 ; Mackinder, 2017 ; Akpinar and Kandir, 2022 ). They found that the role of the teacher influences play quality. In the study of Mawson (2014) the outcomes of a hands-off approach to teacher child interactions, where children could freely roam throughout the woods, was compared to a hands-on approach with teacher-led activities. These two approaches resulted in differences in child behavior. In the hands-off approach, children were taking more risk and challenged themselves more and also engaged in more socio-dramatic play, while in the hands-on approach the teacher was directing children’s attention toward objects for play and shared more factual information.

It is important to also consider other factors that support possibilities of nature-based environments for children’s learning and development. Specifically, including assessments of teachers perceptions of their children’s underachievement, along with their supervisory/teacher style. In the study of Maynard et al. (2013) , most of the children in the study that were perceived as “underachieving,” changed their behavior while playing in a nature-based environment to such extent that this “underachievement” was not seen anymore. To be outdoors in nature with more space and less constraining by teachers offered the children the opportunity to show differences in social, emotional, and learning behavior, for instance children were more cooperative, showed more pro-social behavior and remained more on task.

Reciprocal translation led us to conclude that when children play in nature-based environments, the character of the teachers’ mediation between children and between children and the environment influences how the affordances of the nature-based environment are actualized in play. When children received greater independent mobility license from their teachers ( Kyttä, 2004 ) it not only offered more opportunities for risky play, but also for more independence in being creative, explorative, and self-confident. Moreover, teacher’s mediation itself is impacted by the nature-based environment: the nature-based environment changed their expectations of children’s skills and behavior, which in turn influenced children’s independent mobility license. The more affinity with the nature-based environment teachers had, the more they were able to reinforce children’s mobility and agency toward the nature-based environment, by balancing between child initiative and teacher initiative, transferring some of their own initiative to the nature-based environment.

Taken together our qualitative synthesis suggests that the affordances for play in nature-based environments experienced by children and teachers are not only different from the affordances for play in non-nature-based environments, which is obvious, but the affordances of the nature-based environment might also improve the quality of play. This is interesting for ECE teachers, since high quality play will yield children’s learning and development ( Rubin et al., 1983 ). The studies also indicated that the relation between a nature-based environment and play quality is complex. Although the body of research into this topic is growing, more work needs to be done. The qualitative studies reviewed in this article forms a useful complement to the most recent systematic review on this topic from Dankiw et al. (2020) , which reviewed primarily quantitative studies. Insights from the current review can support our understanding of the meaning of play that is enabled and sustained by the nature-based environment for children in ECE. Taken together, our review gives a first indication of the importance of play in nature-based environments for children’s cognitive, social-emotional, and motor development.

Qualitative research can thus unravel how children’s play and the nature-based environment are mutually constitutive and how play processes are mediated by teachers to support children’s cognitive, social-emotional, and motor development. Through an interpretation of the synthesis, below we present a “line of argument”–step 4 in the meta-ethnography–about how nature play can promote child development. We refine parts of play theory, by elaborating on the importance of the distinctive living character of the nature-based environment and its ability to “play back.” Besides, we will use the affordances theory to reframe the concept “afforded play actions.” We argue that reciprocity and diversity are unique qualities of nature play, contributing to child development if teachers permit and support children to explore the conceptual, social, technical, and metacognitive aspects of the nature-based environment in play.

Line of argument, the value of nature play

Play theories explain how children’s active engagement with the surrounding world (i.e., play) results in knowledge of different aspects of the world, while in the meantime they learn to take part in it ( Bakhurst, 2009 ; Piaget, 2013 ; van Oers, 2013 ). This qualitative synthesis illuminates the uniqueness of nature-based environments for meaningful play activity which is largely ignored in play theories Firstly the “living character” of the nature-based environment, the fact that it has a life of its own, accounts for reciprocity and diversity in children’s play. Secondly the fact that children use tools (or toys) during play is commonly accounted for in play theories, whereas nature-based environments provide an ample and diverse supply of loose parts ( Speldewinde and Campbell, 2022 ). Which results in creative and imaginative play. Furthermore, both the stress reduction theory (SRT) as well as the ART account for the special connection between humans and nature-based environments ( Ulrich, 1983 ; Kaplan, 1995 ; Adams and Savahl, 2017 ). These theories imply that being in nature contributes to wellbeing, but do not refer to interactions with nature. For children, being in an environment leads to interaction with it, and play theory shows that the quality of these play interactions is important ( Burghardt, 2012 ; Speldewinde and Campbell, 2022 ). The current synthesis shows that, for children, not only being in nature but also interacting with nature is important, as they experience that these interactions are reciprocal. Nature has agency in these interactions and is adaptive toward diversity in children’s needs. Children listen to and tune into the nature-based environment, for example they gather sticks, pile them up for the imaginative bears to crunch them up during tea time. As such the environment instigates and enriches play.

In line with Gibson’s affordances theory, this review acknowledges how play actions are afforded by specific features of the physical environment and a specific user. However, we found that the affordances theory might overlook the complexity of the concept of “play” as it tends to look at individual play actions afforded by specific environmental features, such as a tree trunks affording jumping off. Using the affordances theory in this way, the attention will automatically be drawn to physical actions. Based on this qualitative synthesis, we argue that nature-based environments afford play activity on a more complex level than physical play actions alone. As we saw in the example of the children serving imaginative bears sticks during tea time, nature affords not only play actions, but also play scripts. The individual play actions are part of play activity that guides children to transform the perceptual world into a conceptual world. Our review indicates that nature-based environments afford the conditions for play, wellbeing, and involvement, as well as sociodramatic play and cognitive play, while in the meantime serving as a communicative context for sharing concepts together.

Our line of argument helps us to answer our research question: what is the value of play in nature-based environments compared to non-nature-based environments for developmental outcomes of young children (2–8 year). Our answer lays in defining how nature-based environments afford play in a distinctive way resulting in the concept of “nature play”: “play” in a nature-based environment consisting of natural loose and fixed elements (trees, vegetation water, sand, sticks, and stones) where children have the opportunity to engage in activities in which they are highly involved and where they have (some) freedom to develop their own play script, while interacting with and tuning into the affordances of the nature-based environment. Nature play has outcomes for cognitive, social-emotional, and cognitive development. In nature play, children have the possibility to find out how they are part of a living system. Early childhood educators are key actors in how children engage in play in the nature-based environment. They can support them to discover the conceptual, social, technical, and metacognitive aspects of nature-based environments. They need to expand children’s independent mobility to encourage them to explore the environment as well as to mediate between the child and the environment.

Strengths and limitations

The strength of this systematic review is that it synthesized the meaning of play in nature-based environments in ECE across qualitative research. It is worth noting that although the synthesized studies were small-scale studies, these studies were particularly respectful to the way children interact with the world and sincerely tried to give voice to the view of these children and their teachers. Nevertheless, small scale studies are often context-specific lacking the scale to “follow through to the implied logical entailed conclusion” ( Nye et al., 2016 ). Synthesizing the findings of these studies helps us to present new understandings of our topic, by drawing relationships between the individual studies. We acknowledge that the way we have refined and extended theory is not without its problems. A possible bias in the range and nature of qualitative research synthesized here is that outdoor play in ECE is mostly done for the reason of recess and to relax. For example, the strong emphasis on wellbeing and physical play in both the experiences of teachers and children, might reflect a western view on outdoor play in nature-based environments. Therefore, the reciprocal translation of the findings around cognitive skills were harder to synthesize although the importance of these findings for ECE should not be underestimated. Certainly, the strength of the meta-ethnographic approach is that it combines findings from multiple sources to increase validity and takes it a step further than primarily providing a narrative review of individual studies. Instead, it develops higher-order explanations. The consistency in the findings of studies in this meta ethnography supported its value, as the studies were undertaken in different educational settings, with nature-based environments varying in size and design. Another limitation is that in our attempt to translate themes across studies to arrive at higher order concepts during “step 2” of the synthesis, we may have lost some of the meaning and depth of key concepts and themes. However, we sought to preserve individual authors’ interpretations in our reciprocal translation of all the key concepts by memoing the key concepts. These memo’s contained comments on how the concepts were developed, connecting these concepts into meta themes, meanwhile we re-aligned our line of argument with the findings of the individual studies.

Future research

This systematic review provides some suggestions for future research. The first promising line for new research would be to include a deep theoretical understanding of play for the development of young children when studying interventions in nature-based environments. Although the affordances theory seems to explain how the environments afford play actions, it is not sufficient to move beyond the individual play actions. From an educational perspective we argue it is important to shift our view of outdoor play from “letting off steam” to playing in nature-based environments for children’s cognitive development.

From a methodological perspective, future research could benefit from the post humanist view in the study of Harwood and Collier (2017) . Taking the agency of the nature-based environment in the play of young children seriously, we might find new perspectives on how humans and nature are connected. This is in line with the movement of acknowledging the rights of nature, as was done for the first time with the Te Urewera Act in New Zealand ( Parliamentary Counsel Office, n.d. ). In this act, it is acknowledged that Te Urewera has an identity in and of itself, inspiring people to commit to its care. In a western view of nature-based environments we tend to look mostly at the human perspective of interaction with the nature-based environment, whereas in this synthesis it is clear that children experience nature as something that “plays back.”

Results of this systematic review using a meta ethnographic approach indicates that playing in nature-based environments not only supports young children’s healthy physical development (e.g., physical activity and motor development), but might also support their social-emotional, motor, and cognitive development. Although the studies we reviewed were mainly explorative and small-scaled, they do indicate that nature-based environments have far more to offer than only a space to relax or let off steam. Nature-based environments function as a play partner that helps children to transform the perceptual world into a conceptual world, because it diversifies play, is sensory rich and it plays back. When playing in nature-based environments, children have the possibility to connect with it in an interactive way. When teachers know how to mediate children’s interactions with the nature-based environment, these interactions will have developmental value. Therefore, we encourage early childhood teachers to change their practice of playing outdoors into “nature play” as a daily activity that supports cognitive, social-emotional, as well as motor development. Finally, as we have seen the value of nature-based environments for play, in line with in Article 31 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child ( United Nations, 1989 ) we might even consider nature play as a fundamental need and right of children. A need for and right to play in nature based environments that needs to be respected in the lives of young children.

Data availability statement

The original contributions presented in this study are included in the article/ Supplementary material , further inquiries can be directed to the corresponding author.

Author contributions

All authors listed have made a substantial, direct, and intellectual contribution to the work, and approved it for publication.

This work was supported by SIA, part of the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO), (project number RAAK.PRO 02.079).

Acknowledgments

We thank Mrs. Nicole van den Bogerd for her contribution to the keywords for nature-based environments, and Mrs. Mireille Smits and Mrs. Elizabeth Wynberg for their contribution to the validation of the study selection process.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Publisher’s note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

Supplementary material

The Supplementary Material for this article can be found online at: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.995164/full#supplementary-material

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Keywords : play, nature-based environment, play environment, early childhood education, nature play, cognitive development

Citation: Prins J, van der Wilt F, van der Veen C and Hovinga D (2022) Nature play in early childhood education: A systematic review and meta ethnography of qualitative research. Front. Psychol. 13:995164. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.995164

Received: 15 July 2022; Accepted: 04 October 2022; Published: 10 November 2022.

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Copyright © 2022 Prins, van der Wilt, van der Veen and Hovinga. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Jannette Prins, [email protected]

† These authors have contributed equally to this work and share last authorship

Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

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Overview of Play

Its uses and importance in early intervention/early childhood special education.

Lifter, Karin PhD; Foster-Sanda, Suzanne MS; Arzamarski, Caley MS; Briesch, Jacquelyn MS; McClure, Ellen MS

Department of Counseling and Applied Educational Psychology, Northeastern University, Boston, Massachusetts.

Correspondence: Karin Lifter, PhD, Department of Counseling and Applied Educational Psychology, Northeastern University, 404 International Village, Boston, MA 02115. ( [email protected] ).

The authors express sincere appreciation to Alison Cobb, Rachel Horvitz, Bridget Ritter, and Sarah Lael Wertheim for their contributions to this article.

Portions of this article were presented at DEC 2009, Albuquerque, NM, October 17, 2009.

Play is a natural activity of early childhood, which has great relevance to the fields of early intervention, early childhood special education, and early childhood education. Within these fields, ongoing tensions persist in how play is described and used. These tensions compromise activities of assessment, intervention, and curriculum development and their connections to research and practice. This article presents a review about the importance of play in early intervention, early childhood special education and early childhood education and how play is regarded and used within these contexts. In an attempt to clarify the literature on play in early intervention and early childhood special education, particular emphasis is placed on distinguishing 2 divergent uses of play: ( a ) play as a developmental domain and ( b ) play as an activity base in the service of other goals. Recommendations, implications, and future directions are discussed with respect to practitioners, policymakers, and researchers.

THERE is considerable attention in contemporary research, policy, and practice to the importance of children's play in their development and learning; however, this attention is confounded in practice. There are ongoing tensions between ensuring time for children to play versus increased time focused on academic activities.

On the one hand, researchers, policymakers, and practitioners generally agree that play facilitates school readiness, literacy development, and self-regulation. This perspective is supported by research demonstrating connections of play to reading ( Zigler, Singer, & Bishop-Joseph, 2004 ); to literacy skills ( Banerjee & Horn, 2005 ; Roskos & Christie, 2001 ); to self-regulation ( Diamond, Barnett, Thomas, & Munro, 2007 ; Matthews, 2008 ); to social interaction skills ( Odom, McConnell, & Chandler, 1993 ); and to development in general ( Elkind, 2001 ). On the other hand, there is a competing emphasis in preschool and kindergarten on strengthening the pre-academic components of literacy and mathematics skills. The report from the Alliance for Childhood ( Miller & Almon, 2009 ) noted that an emphasis on preacademic skills is associated with an increasing use of prescriptive curricula linked to state standards, especially in the kindergarten years; as a result, little time is left for young children to play. The report criticized practices that reduced time for recess and free time for young children, with concomitant increases in time for academic activities.

The focus of curricula on preacademic skills is especially concerning because of the importance of play for young children from theoretical, research, and policy perspectives. Many theoreticians conceptualized children's play as central to their cognitive and emotional development (eg, Axline, 1964 ; Piaget, 1962 ; Vygotsky, 1978 ; see also Rubin, Fein, & Vandenberg, 1983 ). Countless researchers described developments in children's play—what children do with toys and other objects—from infancy through the preschool years (eg, Belsky & Most, 1981 ; Bloom, 1993 ; Bloom & Tinker, 2001 ; Fenson, Kagan, Kearsley, & Zelazo, 1976 ; Fenson & Ramsay, 1980 ; Garvey, 1977 ; Lifter & Bloom, 1989 ; Lowe, 1975 ; McCune, 1995 ; Nicolich, 1977 ; Smilansky, 1968 ; Ungerer & Sigman, 1981 ; Watson & Fischer, 1977 ). Finally, professional organizations such as the National Association for the Education of Young Children, which guide practitioners in their work with young children, emphasized the importance of play for learning in their position statements ( National Association for the Education of Young Children [NAEYC], 2009 ).

Although the foregoing issues—time for play versus attention to preacademic subjects—are especially relevant for young children in general, 2 additional concerns are introduced when considering the importance of play for young children who are developing with delays, or who are at risk for delays. First, children served through early intervention and early childhood special education (EI/ECSE) usually have delays in play. As a result, they may benefit from interventions in play to facilitate the development of more advanced play skills. Second, a variety of assessments, interventions, and curricula use play activities for implementing a wide variety of developmental goals (eg, language, social, and motor goals) because of the natural context that play provides. Delays in play, however, may compromise assessment and intervention planning for these children. Such delays may not be taken into account when formulating goals in other domains.

The purpose of this review is an attempt to clarify the literature in EI/ECSE and early childhood education in terms of how play is used in these contexts and how it is described. Particular emphasis is placed on distinguishing 2 divergent uses of play. First, play can be considered a developmental domain in its own right. Conversely, play can be regarded as an activity base in the service of the 5 domains indicated by federal law: physical development; cognitive development; communication development; social and emotional development; and adaptive development (IDEIA 2004, Section 300.25). The review is organized around the topics of description, assessment, intervention, and curricula to demonstrate how these dichotomous perspectives of play affect programming in EI/ECSE. This organization also reveals a central concern for play in EI/ECSE: the considerable variability seen in the implementation of the foregoing activities.

The first section of the review provides an overview of the theoretical, research, and policy background that underlies what is known about developments in children's play. The second and largest section centers on play in EI/ECSE in terms of description, assessment, intervention, and curriculum, which illustrates the 2 perspectives. The final section discusses implications of this review and offers recommendations for the use of play in EI/ECSE.

OVERVIEW OF PLAY: THEORY, RESEARCH, AND POLICY

Theoretical perspectives on play.

Most contemporary studies on children's play relate directly or indirectly to the perspectives and terms put forth by Piaget (1962) , Montessori (1967) , and Vygotsky (in Rubin et al., 1983 ). Piaget described play as a “ happy display of known actions ” ( Piaget, 1962 , p. 93), derived from his concept of play as assimilation, whereby children incorporate new experiences onto existing frameworks of understanding. Similarly, Axline (1947) described play as “the child's natural medium of self-expression,” which is an opportunity for the child to “play out his feelings and problems” (p. 8). Through this process, the child experiences “himself as a capable, responsible person” and comes to develop “self-respect...a sense of dignity...and increasing self-understanding” ( Axline, 1964 , p. 67). Alternatively, Montessori regarded play as “ the child's work ” (1967, p. 180), which parallels Piaget's concept of accommodation. Similar to Montessori, Vygotsky regarded play as “ an adaptive mechanism promoting cognitive growth ” (in Rubin et al., 1983 , p. 709).

Piaget (1962) proposed a developmental sequence in play activities, but in global terms. Children begin with “practice games,” also described as “sensorimotor play” or “manipulative play.” “Symbolic play,” also known as “pretend play,” develops toward the end of the second year and continues through the preschool period. The final stage, “games with rules,” generally emerges toward the end of the preschool period and continues through the stage of concrete operations. Smilansky (1968) provided specifications and analyses of “sociodramatic play,” which typically develops during the preschool period. This term introduces a social component whereby children engage with peers by adopting dramatic roles to play out everyday themes, and later, fantasy themes. These theoretical perspectives provided the foundation for the importance of play in early childhood education.

Although the historical terms identified above describe play and qualitative differences in play, they are general and global. Terms such as “manipulative play” and “symbolic play” represent large and diverse kinds of play activities, which lack the specificity needed in using play in EI/ECSE for assessment and intervention purposes. The general and global quality of these categories will be revealed in the following overview of empirical studies, in which more specific developments in play were identified.

Research studies on developments in play

A brief overview of relevant research is presented here to support the claim of play as a developmental domain. This overview begins with a definition of play, followed by a summary of developments in play for young children. It concludes with studies that support relationships between developments in play and developments in other domains.

Definition of play

Researchers and clinicians have used various definitions and terms to describe play. The definition of play for this review refers to play with objects during early childhood (ie, late infancy through the preschool years). In general, researchers who described developments in children's play focused on what children do with available objects (ie, toys). They did not focus on the social interactions that may occur with peers or caregivers in the context of play. Although very important, developments in social engagement can confound an understanding of developments in play with objects. Accordingly, terms such as “cooperative play” ( Parten, 1932 ) and “turn-taking,” which include social components in their descriptions of play, are excluded from this review. In addition, rough-and-tumble play (eg, play often seen on the playground) and games with rules (eg, games children play customarily beyond the preschool years) are not included.

Lifter and Bloom (1998) provided a definition of play that sets the scope for the present paper:

Play is the expression of intentional states—the representations in consciousness constructed from what children know about and are learning from ongoing events—and consists of spontaneous, naturally occurring activities with objects that engage attention and interest. Play may or may not involve caregivers or peers, may or may not involve a display of affect, and may or may not involve pretense (p. 164).

This definition considers play, first, as a demonstration of what children know, and second, a demonstration of what they are currently thinking about. Through play, children actively construct new knowledge about objects, people, and events by integrating new experiences with what they already know. This definition sets the stage for play as a domain. If play is an expression of what children know, then an evaluation of children's play behaviors can be used for an assessment of knowledge. If play is an activity for learning, then interventions in play can be used to help children learn.

Developments in play

Developments in children's play with objects were identified in longitudinal and cross-sectional descriptive studies primarily during the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s (eg, Belsky & Most, 1981 ; Bloom, 1993 ; Bloom & Tinker, 2001 ; Fenson et al., 1976 ; Fenson & Ramsay, 1980 ; Garvey, 1977 ; Lifter & Bloom, 1989 ; Lowe, 1975 ; McCune, 1995 ; Nicolich, 1977 ; Smilansky, 1968 ; Watson & Fischer, 1977 ). These studies were conducted predominantly within the cognitive-developmental tradition. They expanded upon the global categories put forth by Piaget and provided considerable detail on developments in play.

The results revealed the presence of qualitatively different play activities from infancy through the preschool period. Children's early play begins with indiscriminate actions on objects—picking up and dropping, banging, and/or mouthing all objects. Infants also take configurations of objects apart to take hold of objects. In late infancy, children begin to put configurations of objects back together again, and move objects from place to place (eg, in and out of containers).

As early toddlers, children begin to construct relationships that exploit the unique physical properties of objects (eg, stacking cups and blocks). They begin to relate objects to themselves in a pretend manner (eg, “drinking” from a cup). Eventually, they extend pretend activities to dolls and caregivers, while still exploiting the conventional properties of objects and people in the relationships they construct (eg, extending spoon to caregiver's mouth). They also learn to link activities into chains of events that demonstrate increasing levels of planning (eg, feeding a doll, washing a doll, and then putting it to bed). As preschoolers, children typically attribute animacy to doll figures (eg, moving figures to load goods into truck), and they engage in sociodramatic and fantasy play.

These foregoing studies provided evidence of developmental sequences in children's play, leading to the description and organization of play into taxonomies (see Barton, 2010 ; Garfinkle, 2004 ; and Lifter, 1996 , 2008 for reviews). These taxonomies revealed more detailed subcategories of play compared to the global descriptors of manipulative and symbolic play. Identifying progress in play and setting goals in play require greater specificity. For example, “manipulative play” can be subdivided into the following qualitatively different play activities: indiscriminative actions on objects (eg, mouthing all objects); actions of taking configurations of objects apart to take hold of objects (eg, taking a set of nesting cups apart); actions of creating simple configurations of objects (eg, putting the nesting cups back together; dropping beads into a nesting cup); and actions in which children begin to exploit the unique physical properties of objects in the relationships they construct (eg, stacking the nesting cups; putting a bead on a string). (See Lifter, 2000 , for descriptions of detailed sequences of categories of play).

Similarly, symbolic play can be subdivided into qualitatively different play activities: actions which relate objects to the self in a pretend manner (eg, pretending to drink from an empty cup); actions which relate pretend activities to dolls and caregivers (eg, giving doll a drink from a cup); actions displaying the unique conventional properties of objects and people (eg, putting pretend food items into a pot to cook); and actions linking the same or different schemes together into chains of events that demonstrate increasing levels of planning (eg, first cooking food and then feeding it to a doll). Symbolic play also includes actions in which children attribute animacy to doll figures (eg, walks a truck driver figure to load cargo into a truck). Barton (2010) and Vig (2007) noted that studies differ on what constitutes symbolic play, which complicates comparability across studies.

Developments in play in relation to other domains

Play can be considered a distinct domain because of its systematic relationships to other developmental domains, such as the language, cognitive, and social domains. Researchers have demonstrated these relationships in children with and without disabilities (see Vig, 2007 for a review).

Relationships between play and language

Correlations have been found between play and language development. Children with disabilities who showed higher levels of communication skills demonstrated more pretend and symbolic play than children who showed lower levels of communication skills ( Pizzo & Bruce, 2010 ). Barton and Wolery (2010) found that as preschool children progressed through an intervention to develop their play skills, their vocalizations also increased. This effect occurred even though vocalizations were not prompted or reinforced throughout the play intervention. Finally, longitudinal studies by Lifter and Bloom (1989) demonstrated that similar transitions in play and language emerge at the same time. For example, the emergence of constructing relationships between objects in play coincided with the emergence of first words. In addition, the vocabulary spurt occurred when children were learning specific relations between objects in play, such as using a toy spoon to feed a doll. Furthermore, they found that these developments occurred simultaneously despite the variability in chronological ages at which the children reached these developmental points. These findings of similar developmental trajectories between play and language were also supported by other studies (eg, McCune-Nicolich, 1981 ; McCune, 1995 ), which indicated that language and symbolic play milestones reflected similar developments in mental representation.

Relationships between play and cognition

The developmental progression demonstrated by Lifter and Bloom (1989) also suggests that play and cognition develop with a systematic relationship. Specifically, as children learn more about objects (eg, object permanence) they demonstrate more sophisticated play skills. Play development has also been compared to the development of other cognitive skills, such as self-regulation, meta-cognition, and problem-solving ( Whitebread, Coltman, Jameson, & Lander, 2009 ). Specifically, symbolic or pretend play was found to be related to planning, creativity, and symbolic representation.

Relationships between play and social/emotional development

Studies also have supported a correlation between play and social development. In fact, a child's attachment style has been correlated with symbolic play skills. Specifically, preschool boys with autism spectrum disorders who had organized attachments to their parents demonstrated higher scores on symbolic play measures than those who had disorganized attachments ( Marcu, Oppenheim, Koren-Karie, Dolev, & Yirmiya, 2009 ).

Furthermore, research has also suggested an inverse relationship between play and social interaction. Pierce-Jordan and Lifter (2005) observed the naturally occurring play of children with and without pervasive developmental disorder (PDD) in preschool programs. The Developmental Play Assessment (DPA: Lifter, 2000 ) was used to determine each child's level of emerging play (ie, the play activities in the developmental sequence that the child is in the process of learning) and each child's level of mastered play. Regardless of diagnosis, children who were engaged in developmentally difficult, or emerging, play activities were less likely to be engaged in social interaction. The inverse was also found; when children were engaged in social interaction, they were less likely to be engaged in challenging play behaviors and more likely to be engaged in play activities they had mastered.

In Head Start preschool classrooms, Craig-Unkefer and Kaiser (2003) demonstrated that involvement in a plan-play-report intervention increased social-communicative behaviors (eg, peer-directed verbalizations such as descriptive statements and requests), length and complexity of verbalizations, and play of preschool children with delayed expressive language, as evidenced by scores on the Preschool Language Scale-3 (PLS-3: Zimmerman, Steiner, & Pond, 1992 ). The participants also generalized these skills in their interactions with new peers.

The foregoing descriptive studies provide support of developments in play per se. Researchers identified and specified developmental sequences; they revealed a progression in children's development of knowledge of objects and events, which occurs in and through children's play activities. Several studies provided evidence of systematic relationships between developments in play and developments in other domains. Such studies support our claim: play is a developmental domain that can be described in considerable detail. Attention to this claim contributes to an analysis of how play is used in EI/ECSE.

Policy statements on the importance of play

The importance of play is central to policy statements put forth by the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC, 2009) . In their 2009 Position Statement on Developmentally Appropriate Practice, NAEYC stated in their “Key Messages of the Position Statement:”

...Play promotes key abilities that enable children to learn successfully. In high-level dramatic play ... the collaborative planning of roles and scenarios and the impulse control required to stay within the play's constraints develop children's self-regulation, symbolic thinking, memory, and language—capacities critical to later learning, social competence, and school success.

...It is vital for early childhood settings to provide opportunities for sustained high-level play and for teachers to actively support children's progress toward such play.

...Besides embedding significant learning in play , routines, and interest areas, strong programs also provide carefully planned curriculum that focuses children's attention on a particular concept or topic (p.2). (Italics added).

Again, such policy statements emphasize the importance of play for young children and their translation to practice. Such descriptions (eg, “sustained high-level play”), however, may not be useful for personnel who serve children in EI/ECSE. Increased specificity in terminology is required, in addition to information about developments in play that lead up to “high-level play.” Indeed, the research on developments in children's play expanded upon the global categories put forth by Piaget (1962) ; researchers provided evidence of how play develops before children are able to engage in the “high-level dramatic play” and “sustained high-level play” described above in the NAEYC's Position Statement (2009). Knowledge about play from theory, research, and policy must be extended to children served through EI/ECSE. Bridging this gap requires an integration of what is known about developments in play and how play is described and used in EI/ECSE, which is the central purpose of this article.

PLAY IN EI/ECSE: DESCRIPTION, ASSESSMENT, INTERVENTION, AND CURRICULA

The following is an overview of how play is used in EI/ECSE, and how these uses are organized in various activities. Studies that regard play as a domain are distinguished from studies in which play is used as an activity base in support of other developmental domains.

Play in EI/ECSE: descriptive studies

Many researchers have described play in children with various delays and disabilities, concluding that they tend to exhibit delays in play as well as in other domains. Researchers who examined play activities in children with Down syndrome demonstrated that level of play is more highly correlated with measures of mental age than with chronological age ( Hill & McCune-Nicolich, 1981 ). Other studies of children with Down syndrome revealed similar results, while also demonstrating less exploratory behavior during play than typically developing children and a tendency to elaborate on the same play themes repeatedly ( Cunningham, Glenn, Wilkinson, & Sloper, 1985 ). The play of children of mothers who have abused substances has been characterized in terms of continued persistence of immature play strategies and delayed development of more complex play ( Beckwith et al., 1994 ). Similarly, children with visual impairments demonstrate limited exploration, more solitary play, and less symbolic play ( Tröster & Brambring, 1994 ).

A number of descriptive studies found delays in the play of children with autism spectrum disorders (eg, Hobson, Lee, & Hobson, 2009 ; Libby, Powell, Messer, & Jordan, 1998 ; McDonough, Stahmer, Schreibman, & Thompson, 1997 ). These studies revealed delays in developing pretend/symbolic play; less frequent spontaneous play; high frequency of repetitive play; limited imitation skills; and limited cooperative play and turn-taking behavior. In addition, children with autism displayed more sensorimotor play and less symbolic play compared to typically developing children, but engaged in the same amount of functional and relational play.

Overall, these findings demonstrate, first, that play can be described, and second, that delays in play are revealed in ways similar to other delays these children experience. They uphold the perspective of considering play as a domain for assessment, intervention, and curriculum activities.

Play in EI/ECSE: assessment

Various assessment instruments used in EI/ECSE are presented in Table 1 . These assessments are organized in terms of those that focus on (1) play as an activity base; (2) play as a domain; and (3) assessment of some other play-related domain (eg, social play), in addition to the children's age ranges and the kinds of play activities examined. Citations for reliability and validity of these assessments are included where possible.

Use of play as an activity base in assessment

Given children's delays in play, there is considerable attention to play assessment in the fields of EI and ECSE. Fewell and Glick (1993) , Linder (1993 , 2008 ), and Vig (2007) described the need to provide alternatives to traditional, standardized assessments based on contrived and elicited behaviors. This focus is consistent with the predominant use of play in EI/ECSE: play-based assessment, which is the use of naturally occurring play behaviors to measure developments in the 5 domains specified in federal law (IDEIA 2004, Section 300.25). To assess young children in the context of their everyday activities, rather than with contrived tasks in artificial situations, is a major contribution to EI/ECSE assessment. Within the context of naturally occurring play activities, a child's abilities across domains are revealed and can be evaluated. For example, with the Transdisciplinary Play-Based Assessment, Second Edition (TPBA-2, Linder, 2008 ), evaluators gain information about a child's sensorimotor, emotional and social, communication and language, and cognitive functioning by observing how they play with a familiar adult and how they behave in a play environment.

Assessment of play as a developmental domain

There is considerable attention to the assessment of play as something that can be measured. A list of instruments is presented in the second part of Table 1 .

Three instruments focus on developments in play that cover the toddler to preschool period: the Westby Symbolic Playscale ( Westby, 2000 ; 1980 ); the Play in Early Childhood Evaluation System ( Kelly-Vance & Ryalls, 2005 ); and the Developmental Play Assessment ( DPA : Lifter, 2000 ). Of these instruments, the DPA provides a considerable amount of differentiation in play development; a child's play is evaluated against progress in 15 categories. Similarly, the Play in Early Childhood Evaluation System instrument evaluates a child's play in terms of 13 core categories. The Westby Symbolic Playscale evaluates a child's play in terms of broader categories.

Other instruments are available, but restrict their age range of interest to less than 8 to 60 months (eg, Assessing Play and Exploratory Behaviors of Infants and Toddlers : Wagner & Frost, 1986 ; Symbolic Play Test : Lowe & Costello, 1988 , described in Power & Radcliffe, 2000 ; Play Assessment Scale : Fewell, 1986 ; see also Rutherford & Rogers, 2003 ).

Some instruments focus on pretend/symbolic play alone (eg, Child Initiated Pretend Play Assessment : Stagnitti & Unsworth, 2004 ; Pretend Play Scale , as cited in Blanc, Adrien, Roux, & Barthélémy, 2005 ; Test of Pretend Play : Lewis & Boucher, 1997 ).

Assessment of social play

Play assessment instruments that focus on the social components of play activities are presented in the third part of Table 1 . These instruments are used to examine how well a child interacts with other children in the context of play activities. They include the Penn Interactive Peer Play Scale (eg, Fantuzzo & Hampton, 2000 ); the Preschool Play Behavior Scale ( Coplan & Rubin, 1998 ); and the Parten-Smilansky Play Scale (see Rubin, Watson, & Jambor, 1978 ). Although very useful, such assessments confound an evaluation of play as a domain with an evaluation of social development.

In summary, although many play assessment instruments are available, distinctions between their uses and purposes should be taken into account. These instruments also vary in terms of the age range of interest and the levels of specificity for developments in play against which children are evaluated. Still additional instruments focus on social development in play, which may confound developments in play. These distinctions should be considered when selecting a play assessment for use in EI/ECSE.

Play in EI/ECSE: intervention

Play also is used widely for intervention purposes. Table 2 provides examples of studies that used play as an activity base in support of goals in other domains, and Table 3 focuses on interventions in play as a domain. The information provided is illustrative and not exhaustive.

Use of play as an activity base in support of other domains

The Division for Early Childhood (DEC) Recommended Practices ( Sandall, Hemmeter, McLean, & Smith, 2005 ) for child-focused interventions ( Wolery, 2005 ) highlights the importance of implementing goals in natural contexts, of which play activities are of primary importance. Play activities have been used to implement goals in a variety of developmental domains. The studies presented in Table 2 are organized in terms of the participating children, the goals of the intervention (by domain), and the kind of play activities used to implement the intervention.

Language goals implemented in a play context

Play provides an environment in which children frequently use language ( Hart & Risley, 1975 ; Lifter & Bloom, 1998 ). Much research has centered on the free-play design in which language interventions are implemented during play with preschoolers and toddlers in a natural context ( Rytter, 2008 ; Hart & Risley, 1975 ; Hemmeter, Ault, Collins, & Meyer, 1996 ; Girolametto, Pearce, & Weitzman, 1997 ).

Girolametto et al. (1997) found that toddlers' communication improved during a “free play interaction,” an intervention program aimed to enhance parent communication with their toddlers with language delays. Hemmeter et al. (1996) found an increase in preschoolers' communication when teachers applied a language intervention within “play activities.” These findings support the use of play as a language-learning context. Despite the success of these interventions, however, concerns center on the kind of play used given that language development is correlated positively with the acquisition of more sophisticated play behaviors ( Lifter & Bloom, 1998 ; Neeley, Neeley, Justen, & Tipton-Sumner, 2001 ).

Social goals implemented in a play context

Several studies have examined the use of play to promote social skills and increase appropriate social interactions in children at-risk for, and exhibiting delays in, this domain ( Craig-Unkefer & Kaiser, 2003 ; Delano & Snell, 2006 ; Koegel, Werner, Vismara, & Koegel, 2005 ; Kohler, Anthony, Steigher, & Hoyson, 2001 ). Research generally involves using different play contexts (ie, activity centers, group play) and different play activities (eg, socio-dramatic play) as the setting in which social interventions take place. Craig-Unkefer and Kaiser (2003) examined the effects of a play intervention on preschoolers with social delays. The researchers used role-play (eg, playing doctor), dramatic play (eg, playing dress-up), and manipulative play activities (ie, construction, airport, camping) to successfully increase social-communicative interactions, measured by children's descriptive statements (eg, peer-directed comments and acknowledgement responses) and request utterances (eg, information requests, yes-no questions, and clarification requests).

Using play to increase social behaviors is integral to EI/ECSE research because play contexts easily generalize to naturalistic, least-restrictive environments in which social interventions may be implemented. Further research is necessary to determine whether the quality of play used in the interventions is developmentally appropriate for the participating children.

Motor goals implemented in a play context

Physical therapists use play activities to address many motor goals ( Ritter & Cobb, 2010 ). Research supports the use of movement training, positioning, and conditioning within the context of play activities. For example, Chiarello and Palisano (1998) instructed mothers on the use of physical therapy strategies, especially for positioning and locomotion, using play activities. Heathcock and Galloway (2009) used toys to stimulate foot movements in infants who were born prematurely. Similarly, Heathcock, Lobo, and Galloway (2010) used toys to stimulate reaching in preterm infants.

In summary, the strengths of using play to support developments in other domains revolve around the use of play as a natural activity. As can be seen in Table 2 , a variety of different goals were targeted, and very different kinds of play activities were used to support these goals. A potential limitation when using play to support developments in other domains is that the requirements of the play context may compromise the success of learning the target goals (ie, the use of activities beyond the child's level of understanding). Because research has demonstrated that play develops according to its own developmental sequence, attention to a child's progress in play should be considered to increase the likelihood that the child will understand the play requirements of the intervention.

Intervention studies to support developments in play

Many researchers and practitioners have focused on ways to facilitate and support children learning new play skills. Researchers have shown that teaching play to children with autism and PDD can lead to significant increases in play skills, as well as skills in other domains ( Ingersoll & Schreibman, 2006 ; Kasari, Freeman, Paparella, 2006 ; Lifter, Ellis, Cannon, & Anderson, 2005 ; Lifter, Sulzer-Azaroff, Anderson, & Cowdery, 1993 ; Stahmer, 1995 ; Wong, Kasari, Freeman, & Paparella, 2007 ). Other studies focused on increasing pretend play skills, spontaneous imitation skills, verbalization, and cooperative play ( MacDonald, Sacramone, Mansfield, Wiltz, & Ahearn, 2009 ). The finding that children with PDD were able to complete targeted play activities only when given direct play instruction supports the early teaching of play skills to children with developmental delays ( Lifter et al., 2005 ).

Not all children with autism will respond positively to the same types of interventions, suggesting the need for individualized intervention programs. For example, Ingersoll and Schreibman (2006) demonstrated that although successful in improving the play skills of some children, not all children benefited from the Reciprocal Imitation Training method. Wong et al. (2007) suggested that because of the links demonstrated in descriptive studies between play skills and these areas, practitioners should take the “mental age,” “receptive language age,” and “chronological age” of children with autism into consideration when designing skills interventions (p. 104). More research in this area should be conducted so practitioners can choose the evidence-based intervention that best suits a child's level of development in play.

A sample of these studies is presented in Table 3 . Several studies used a play assessment instrument to evaluate a child's progress in play to identify target play goals (eg, Kasari et al., 2006 ; Lifter et al., 1993 , 2005 ; Rogers et al., 1986 ; Sherratt, 2002 ). Of these studies, Kasari et al. (2006) and Lifter et al., (1993 , 2005 ) used assessments that evaluated children against highly differentiated categories of play that spanned a large age range. The Rogers et al. (1986) and Sherratt (2002) studies focused on symbolic play. Still other studies focused on broad categories of play, including symbolic play ( Rogers et al. 1986 ; Stahmer, 1995 ), and also on sociodramatic play ( Goldstein & Cisar, 1992 ; Thorp, Stahmer, & Schreibman, 1995 ). In several cases, it is not clear how these target activities were identified, except through observing children's delays or deficits in these areas of play.

In summary, the strengths of these intervention studies include teaching children play activities, given their delays in play. In some cases, the research also provided evidence for the intervention success at follow-up. Nevertheless, limitations include the inconsistencies in methods to assess a child's progress in play to identify goals in play. Please see Barton and Wolery (2008) and Rogers (2005) for reviews of intervention studies in play.

Play in EI/ECSE: curricula centered on play for young children

Play is an optimal learning medium for young children, resulting in its frequent use as the basis of many curricula in EI/ECSE and in early childhood education. As with assessment and intervention activities, curricula either regard play as a general activity base or as a domain per se. Indeed these divergent perspectives and uses of play are implicit in the NAEYC's 2009 Position Statement on Developmentally Appropriate Practice , presented earlier, contributing to the confusion on uses of play. One segment appears to focus on play to embed opportunities for learning:

...Besides embedding significant learning in play , routines, and interest areas, strong programs also provide carefully planned curriculum that focuses children's attention on a particular concept or topic (italics added).

Another segment appears to attend to play per se:

...It is vital for early childhood settings to provide opportunities for sustained high-level play and for teachers to actively support children's progress toward such play (italics added).

The distinction between play as an activity base and play as a domain for learning contributes to clarifying the different meanings between the foregoing statements.

Curriculum as a natural activity base

Curricula that regard play as a natural activity base are classified as ( a ) curriculum-generated play and ( b ) play-generated or play-based curricula ( Johnson, Christie, & Yawkey, 1999 ; Linder, 2008 ; Widerstrom, 2005 ). With curriculum-generated play, teachers arrange play experiences to teach concepts and skills from areas such as literacy, mathematics, and sciences. For example, children can practice early numeracy skills such as counting or single-digit addition while playing at a supermarket play center. In contrast, with play-generated curriculum, teachers organize learning experiences around themes and interests that children demonstrate in their play. For example, they may design a curricular unit across subjects around students' interest in farm animals. These kinds of curricula maintain the use of play to support a variety of learning goals.

Curriculum centered on learning to play

Curricula also are available that focus on learning to play ( Widerstrom, 2005 ; Linder, 2008 ). With play-focused curricula, certain learning goals are developed around learning to play, such as learning sequences of play. The ultimate objective of a play-focused curriculum is to help children develop more complex levels of play through their involvement in different play stations, including block, sand, and water centers. Accordingly, these kinds of curricula focus on learning to play.

Concerns exist with this approach in terms of how a child's progress in play is determined so that the child benefits from the selected play activities. If play is regarded as a developmental domain, then it is important to link a child's progress in play to the goals determined for intervention per se, or targeted with a curriculum centered on learning to play.

DISCUSSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS FOR PLAY IN EI/ECSE

Contemporary attention to play in general centers on the importance of play in policy and practice, in addition to the threats imposed by increased attention to learning standards rather than play. Research and practice in EI/ECSE, however, centers on ( a ) identifying delays in play for children served through EI/ECSE, ( b ) supporting developments in play for children with delays, and ( c ) using the natural context of play activities for intervention purposes. Despite the current emphasis on promoting the systematic, evidence-based use-of-play for a variety of purposes in EI/ECSE, contrasting efforts remain problematic because of the continued use of global descriptions of play, inattention to identifying developmental progress, and confounding interventions in play per se with the use of play as an activity base with other domains.

This review attempted to contribute clarity to the literature on play in EI/ECSE, given the confusions about how play is described and used. The distinctions offered here are discussed later in the contexts of play as a domain and of differentiated descriptions of play.

Play as a developmental domain

This perspective—play as a developmental domain—influences the 2 major uses of play: (1) play as a domain to be developed and (2) play as a natural context for supporting goals in other domains. Developments in play correlate with developments in other domains (eg, language, cognition) and vary systematically with these domains (eg, social domain). Therefore, it can be argued that play is a domain in its own right, and assessments and interventions for play should be established. Because play is a domain to be developed for young children with delays and disabilities, systematic attention to children's progress in play is needed for ( a ) determining goals for intervention and ( b ) using play in the service of other domains.

As was revealed in the descriptive studies of their play, children with delays and disabilities often have trouble learning, which includes learning to play. They have difficulties engaging with objects and events in ways that help them move their knowledge forward in play. These difficulties have implications for interventions.

An assessment of developmental progress in play should be considered for interventions in play, as well as the use of play in the service of other domains. Such an assessment would help identify categories of play activities that are at the leading edge of a child's development, in addition to categories the child knows well and categories that are too difficult for a child at that time. Examples of intervention studies in which target activities were linked to assessment are presented in Table 3 .

Assessment of progress in play also could contribute to the use of play in support of other domains. For example, using the DPA, Pierce-Jordan and Lifter (2005) provided evidence of an inverse relationship between complexity of play, assessed on a child-by-child basis, and complexity of social coordination. Complex social coordination occurred more often in play activities that were familiar to the children as opposed to play activities they were in the process of learning. The results indicated that play activities to support complex social coordination should be activities that the child knows well (ie, play activities evaluated as “mastered”).

Research also supports developments in language and play as occurring simultaneously (eg, Lifter & Bloom, 1989 ; McCune, 1995 ). Such results suggest that goals of an intervention in language should be implemented in the context of play activities the child is in the process of learning (ie, play activities evaluated as “emerging”).

The importance of play as a natural activity cannot be overstated. Its use to support the implementation of goals in other domains is extremely important in EI/ECSE. If play is regarded as a developmental domain, which is suggested here, then attention to a child's progress in play can be used to enhance, and not compete with, goals in other domains. Obviously, studies are needed to support this approach, but the implications of play as a domain provide support for it.

Differentiated categories of developments in play

Ongoing tensions between time for play versus an increased focus on preacademic activities have raised several concerns regarding the use of play in EI/ECSE; the descriptions centered on fairly complex levels of play such as high-level (dramatic) play, imaginary play, and sociodramatic play. Although these terms refer to more advanced levels of play, it is not clear what they mean and how they overlap with one another. More importantly, they do not account for developments that precede these levels, and the importance of these earlier levels to developments in play for children with delays and disabilities. Many children who are served through EI/ECSE do not progress to these high levels of play. Consequently, a comprehensive understanding of play should include detailed information about how play typically develops in young children and eventually results in these more advanced levels of play.

Furthermore, practitioners and policy makers in EI/ECSE should be wary of using global descriptors of play categories, such as using “manipulative or functional play” to describe any instances of children making connections between objects, and such as using “symbolic play” to refer to any play activities with elements of pretense. The descriptive studies provided a high level of detail and specificity with respect to categories of play that develop sequentially throughout infancy and early childhood. These more finely differentiated descriptions of categories of play are needed to inform programming efforts in EI/ECSE, and thus to work effectively with young children with delays and disabilities. Several play assessment instruments, presented in Table 1 , are available that provide differentiated categories of developments in play, which allow for a more precise determination of a child's progress in play.

Although research studies have provided more detailed descriptions for work in EI/ECSE, which resulted in the development of assessment instruments, the descriptions are variable. Future research is needed to disambiguate these descriptions (eg, Barton, 2010 ).

This article emphasized the importance of knowing why and how play is being used to serve children with delays and disabilities. In using play in EI/ECSE, the distinction between interventions in play per se and using play in the service of other domains is helpful; they are for different purposes and require different approaches. Both uses require the perspective of play as a developmental domain, which requires attention to developmental progress in play. It also is important to take into account the research base that describes developments in play in more detail than the global descriptors. These distinctions, and with particular attention to the child's progress in play, will enhance the use of play for fun and for learning. They argue for the importance and value of maintaining time for play in EI/ECSE curricula.

children's play; developmental domain; play assessment; play intervention; play curriculum

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Children’s descriptions of playing and learning as related processes

Susan M. Letourneau

1 New York Hall of Science, New York, New York, United States of America

David M. Sobel

2 Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, United States of America

Associated Data

The consent forms provided to participants did not include information about public data sharing. Therefore the data are restricted. Subject to IRB approval, researchers may request access to the data by contacting ude.nworb@ataDhcraeseR , attention Arielle Nitenson.

Many studies have examined children’s understanding of playing and learning as separate concepts, but the ways that children relate playing and learning to one another remain relatively unexplored. The current study asked 5- to 8-year-olds (N = 92) to define playing and learning, and examined whether children defined them as abstract processes or merely as labels for particular types of activities. We also asked children to state whether playing and learning can occur simultaneously, and examined whether they could give examples of playing and learning with attributes either congruent or incongruent with those activities. Older children were more likely to define both playing and learning in terms of abstract processes, rather than by describing particular topics or activities. Children who defined both playing and learning in this way were able to generate more examples of situations where they were simultaneously playing and learning, and were better able to generate examples of learning with characteristics of play, and examples of playing with characteristics of learning. These data suggest that children develop an understanding that learning and playing can coincide. These results are critical to researchers and educators who seek to integrate play and learning, as children’s beliefs about these concepts can influence how they reflect on playful learning opportunities.

Children’s developing understanding of the relation between playing and learning

Early childhood education has increasingly focused on play as a foundation for learning, drawing on decades of research linking children’s play with their social and cognitive development [ 1 – 6 ]. This work has shown that play provides opportunities for children to practice social and emotional skills, to use increasingly complex cognitive processes, and to strengthen bonds with their caregivers and peers [ 7 – 9 ]. Play can also support more formal learning outcomes, particularly with adult guidance [ 10 – 13 ]. In sum, play is an avenue for many kinds of learning in early childhood.

Despite this evidence, studies have also found that children often describe playing and learning as mutually exclusive. From a young age, children describe play as a freely-chosen and social activity that involves positive affect, while learning is mandatory, serious, and overseen by adults [ 14 – 20 ]. The methods used in many of these studies, however, might encourage children to contrast playing and learning without also providing opportunities for them to describe their similarities. For example, children are often asked to describe how playing and learning differ or to label an activity as either playing or learning in a forced-choice task [ 15 , 21 ]. By presenting playing and learning as opposites, these methods potentially underestimate the extent to which children recognize that playing can lead to learning or that learning can occur while playing.

In this study, we examined how children reflect on the intersections between playing and learning. In particular, we asked whether children who recognize that learning is an active process also recognize that play offers opportunities to learn, and whether this understanding develops over time. Just as adults’ awareness of the learning opportunities in play are vital in fostering playful forms of early learning [ 10 , 22 – 23 ], children’s own metacognitive awareness of how they think and learn can have powerful implications for their engagement in learning as well as their identities as active learners [ 24 – 29 ]. For educators who provide playful learning environments for young children, understanding how children describe their own play and learning can suggest opportunities to scaffold their reflection about what it means to learn, as well as the ways that learning can happen through everyday experiences like play [ 24 , 30 ].

Numerous studies that have shown that young children develop the capacity to reflect on their own learning [ 31 – 38 ]. For example, in one study, researchers asked children to define “learning” and to give examples of how they had learned in the past [ 38 ]. Four- and 5-year-olds often defined learning as tied to particular types of content or topics (e.g., learning is math). By age 8, almost all the children in their sample described learning as an active process that resulted in a change in knowledge or skills, reflecting a metacognitive understanding of learning as involving their own mental states. Independent of age and language abilities, children’s definitions of learning related to their ability to describe sources and strategies that allowed changes in their knowledge to take place. Such development is consistent with other investigations of children’s understanding of learning, such as their ability to track how or from whom they learned new information [ 39 , 40 ] or that learning involves integrating various mental states together, and is not dependent on a single action or mental state [ 41 ].

Other studies suggest that articulating an abstract, process-based definition of a concept may be domain-specific. For example, similar shifts from concrete to abstract definitions have been found in children’s developing concepts of pretending [ 42 ], of teaching [ 43 ], and of creativity. Children’s descriptions of learning as a process of knowledge change, however, developed earlier than their descriptions of teaching as a process that causes knowledge change in others. The question remains whether children also come to define playing as an abstract, metacognitive process. If children do so, when and how do they begin to reflect on the relations between playing and learning, and is a process-based understanding of learning or playing necessary to integrate these concepts?

We asked children between the ages of 5 and 8 to define both playing and learning. We focused on this age group because the studies described above found that children’s definitions of learning changed during this time period, shifting from describing particular topics that could be learned to describing a process through which they learned. By asking children about both playing and learning in the current study, we examined whether children had abstract, process-based understandings of both concepts. Moreover, asking about both concepts allowed us to directly compare the developmental trajectories of children’s responses.

We next asked children to think of examples of activities in which they were both playing and learning at the same time. Our hypothesis was that children who defined both playing and learning as more abstract processes would be more likely to generate examples of activities that they considered to be both playing and learning, and to articulate why those activities could be categorized in both ways. This pattern of findings would suggest that children with more abstract definitions of these concepts have a metacognitive awareness of when the processes of playing and learning can overlap.

Finally, using a between-subjects design, half of the children in the study were asked for examples of playing that involved features congruent with play (instances when playing was fun, freely chosen, or not directed by adults), and examples of learning that involved features congruent with learning (instances when learning was serious, not freely chosen, or directed by adults). The other half of children were asked for examples of playing and learning with qualities of the opposite activity (i.e., examples of playing incongruent with play and examples of learning incongruent with learning, such as learning that was fun, or play that was serious). These examples came from the previous studies that asked children to describe playing and learning using forced-choice methods [ 15 , 21 ]. If children use these features to differentiate playing and learning, then they should have more difficulty coming up with examples when given incongruous rather than congruous qualities. Moreover, their ability to come up with examples with incongruent features might relate to the ways in which they defined these concepts. An open question is whether children’s definitions of playing or learning relate to the inferences they make about whether playing or learning is occurring.

Participants

Participants included 92 children (57 girls, 35 boys) between the ages of 5 and 8 (Range: 60.20–107.90 months, M = 84.96 months). Children were tested at a local children’s museum during regular museum visits with a family member or guardian present. No formal measures of race, ethnicity or SES were administered, but the majority of children were white and middle to upper-middle class (as reflected by museum visitor surveys).

This research was approved by the Brown University IRB under the protocol, Emergence of Diagnostic Reasoning and Scientific Thinking (#1201000538 ). Interviews took place in a quiet room within the museum and lasted approximately 10 minutes. All parents/guardians were stepped through informed consent and children had to agree to participate before the experiment started.

The first part of the procedure involved asking children to define learning and playing. Children were asked to define learning using prompts from a 2015 study by Sobel & Letourneau [ 38 ]. The interviewer asked “What does learning mean?” If children did not respond, the question was restated, “What does it mean to learn?” The interviewer also asked, “What do you think ‘playing’ means?” If children did not understand the question or did not respond, the question was restated, “What does it mean ‘to play’?” If children were not sure or did not answer, the interviewer moved on to the next questions. Whether children were asked to define learning or playing first was counterbalanced.

Children were then asked whether they could think of a time that they were playing and learning at the same time (with the order of the words ‘playing’ and ‘learning’ in the question counterbalanced across children) and to describe what they were doing. They were then asked “Why was that both playing and learning?” Children were allowed to generate up to three examples.

Next, children were asked to provide examples of their own playing and learning under different conditions. Approximately half of the children in this sample (n = 45) were assigned to the congruent condition, in which they were asked to generate examples of playing under characteristic attributes related to playing (being enjoyable, freely chosen, and without adults) and examples of learning with attributes related to learning (being serious, mandatory, and with adult supervision or direction). Thus, in the congruent condition, children were asked whether they could think of time they were playing and having fun or being happy, doing something that they wanted to do, and when there were no adults supervising. For each, they were given prompts like “what were you doing?” and “tell me more about that,” if necessary. For each example, they were asked whether they were learning too and to justify their answer. Similarly, children in the congruent condition were asked whether they could think of a time they were learning and were being serious or concentrating, doing what someone else told them to do, and were with an adult like a teacher. The same prompts were used, and children were asked whether they were also playing in these examples and to justify their answer.

The other children in the sample (n = 47) were assigned to the incongruent condition in which they were asked to generate examples of playing with characteristic conditions related to learning, and examples of learning with characteristic conditions related to playing. These children were asked if they could think of a time when they were playing and were serious or concentrating, doing what someone else told them to do, and playing with adult supervision. Similarly, these children were asked if they could think of a time when they were learning and having fun or being happy, doing what they wanted to do, and without adult supervision. The same prompts and follow-up questions were used. The order in which they received the questions about playing and learning were counterbalanced.

Children’s definitions of learning were categorized in the same manner as Sobel and Letourneau (2015) [ 38 ] in order to replicate their findings and analyze the shift from more concrete example-based to more abstract, process-based definitions of learning. Responses were divided into the following categories: (1) No Response , including “I don’t know,” or no answer; (2) Identity responses, in which children used the word “learn” or “learning” to define learning (e.g., “learning is when you learn.”); (3) Content responses, in which children defined learning as involving a subject or topic that was or could be learned (e.g., “Like reading and math.”), and (4) Process responses, in which children defined learning as involving either a source (e.g., “when your teacher tells you something”) or a strategy (“when you practice again and again until you know it”) that would result in gaining knowledge.

Definitions of playing were coded into the following categories, in order to distinguish more concrete example-based definitions with more abstract process-based definitions: (1) No response , or “I don’t know”. (2) Identity : the child used the word “play” or “playing” to define playing, without elaborating further (e.g., “Playing is when you play.”). (3) Content : the child’s answer contained information about what they play or play with (e.g., “Using your toys.”). (4) (4) Process : the child’s answer contained information about either who they play with (e.g., “Hanging out with your friends”), how they play (e.g., “chasing each other”, “building things”, “pretending”), or the outcome or result of playing (e.g., “having fun”, “being happy”). We combined these three aspects of children’s definitions of playing because they align with the types of sources and strategies that were included in children’s process definitions of learning. With the exception of the no response category, these categories were not mutually exclusive; children could mention more than one aspect of play in their definitions.

We next looked at the examples in which children described themselves as playing and learning at the same time. First, we coded how many examples children were able to generate (ranging from 0 to 3). Next, we coded what children described playing or learning in each example. Coders judged whether children’s examples involved one of the following forms of play: physical play (e.g., playing tag, sports), a structured indoor game (e.g., board games, puzzles), creative play (e.g., drawing, painting), pretend play (e.g., playing house), or functional object play (playing with toy cars), or were not examples of playing. Coders also judged whether children’s examples involved one of the following types of learning: topics (such as general academic or protoacademic subjects, like math or colors), skills (such as physical skills like learning how to swim or other instructions, like how to make a bracelet), conventions (such as social and nonsocial rules like “wear a coat outside” or “it’s nice to share”), or facts (such as non-generalizable knowledge like “ants have six legs”), or were not examples of learning. These codes were similar to the ones used in our prior study on children’s definitions of learning [ 29 ], and were meant to document the types of activities that children judged to be both playing and learning. Finally, we coded whether children generated examples of playing and learning in response to each individual attribute (e.g., having fun/being serious, directed/not directed by an adult, doing what someone tells you to do/doing what you want to do), using a binary code.

Children’s definitions of learning and playing were all coded from transcripts of the interviews by two undergraduate research assistants who were both blind to the purpose of the study. Overall agreement was 95% (Kappa = .75). Disagreements were resolved by the first author. The rest of the coding was performed by two different undergraduate research assistants, who were also blind to the purpose of the study. Their agreement was 91% (Kappa = .79). Disagreements were resolved by the second author.

Statistical analyses

All statistical analyses were conducted using SPSS Statistics software for Windows, Version 24 (IBM Corp., Released 2016). To protect the privacy and confidentiality of participants in this study, only de-identified data will be made available to interested researchers. These data are located at https://doi.org/10.26300/gtrw-7q13 through the Brown University Data Repository System. Data sharing is contingent on IRB approval from the requester’s home institution.

We conducted our analyses as follows. First, to determine how children’s definitions of playing and learning changed with age:

• 1) We determined whether children generated more abstract, metacognitive definitions of playing and/or learning This included process-based definitions of learning (in which children mentioned with whom or how learning occurred) and of playing (in which children mentioned how, with whom, and the results of playing).
• 2) We calculated correlations between children’s metacognitive definitions of playing and of learning with age, and examined the frequency with which children generated metacognitive definitions of either concept. We also calculated partial correlations between these variables controlling for the mean length of utterances in children’s definitions of playing and of learning (MLU).

Next, to understand how children believed that playing and learning related to one another:

• 3) We examined the number of examples of activities that children considered to be both playing and learning at the same time, and calculated correlations among this variable, children’s age, and the presence of metacognitive definitions of playing and of learning. We also qualitatively described the types of examples children gave.
• 4) We conducted a multinomial logistic regression to determine the unique contributions of children’s definitions of playing, of learning, and age on the number of examples they gave of playing and learning at the same time.
• 5) We examined children’s ability to generate examples of playing and learning in the congruent vs. incongruent condition. We calculated the total number of examples children generated; children could generate up to three examples of playing and up to three examples of learning, since children answered three questions about the characteristics of each activity. We used a General Estimating Equation Analysis, analyzing the total number of examples of each type that children generated in an ordinal logistic model, with play vs. learning as a within-subject factor, condition and whether children generated metacognitive definitions of learning and play as between-subject factors, and age (in months) as a covariate. This analysis shows whether children had difficulty generating examples of playing with characteristics of learning, and vice versa.
• 6) Finally, we examined each characteristic individually as they related to children’s judgments of playing and learning. We used Fisher’s exact tests to determine whether there were differences in children’s likelihood of generating an example for playing vs. learning for any individual characteristic (e.g., how often children generated an example of having fun while playing vs. while learning), and Chi-Squared tests to determine whether there were differences between each congruous and incongruous characteristic (e.g., generating an example of playing while having fun vs. while being serious).

We also note that although we used a task that relied on children’s linguistic responses, we controlled for MLU in our analyses of children’s definitions (see Results ), and our other analyses focused on whether children generated any valid response, and not the amount of detail or length of their responses. For example, when asked if they could think of a time when they were playing and learning at the same time, children’s answers could be extremely brief (“Yes, hopscotch”) and still be considered valid because they show that children themselves thought this activity involved some aspect of playing and some aspect of learning. We did ask children to justify their answers in order to prompt them for as much detail as possible to aid in coding, but our analyses were based on the presence of particular responses to our questions, rather than their length. Therefore, we believe this linguistic task is an appropriate method for querying children’s conceptions about what it means to be playing or learning, as our primary concern was making the task as open-ended as possible to avoid presenting playing and learning as opposites.

How did children’s definitions of playing and learning change with age?

Table 1 shows the distribution of children’s definitions of playing and learning. Our first analyses focus on whether children generated metacognitive (i.e., process) definitions of playing and learning. There were no differences in these definitions between genders, χ 2 (1, N = 92) = 0.21 and 0.13 for playing and learning respectively, p = .65 and .72, so this variable will not be considered further. We examined how age and MLU correlated with metacognitive process definitions of learning and of playing. There were positive correlations between children’s age and MLU for their definitions of learning, r s (90) = .30, p = .003, and their definitions of playing r s (90) = .17, p = .11. MLU values significantly correlated with the presence of metacognitive process definitions of learning, r s (90) = .42, p < .001, and of playing r s (90) = .20, p = .05. We observed a significant positive correlation between age and metacognitive process definitions of learning, r s (90) = .40, p < .001. Partial correlations showed that this effect was still significant after controlling for the MLU in children’s definitions, r s (87) = .32, p = .002. These findings paralleled the results of Sobel and Letourneau (2015) [ 38 ]. There was also a significant positive correlation between age and metacognitive definitions of playing, r s (90) = .34, p = .001, and again, this correlation remained significant when controlling for the MLU of children’s definitions, r s (87) = .31, p = .003. Unsurprisingly, there was also a significant correlation between children’s age and whether their definitions of both learning and playing were coded as metacognitive, r s (90) = .39, p < .001. Fig 1 shows the relation between children’s age and whether they generated a metacognitive definition of learning and playing.

With the exception of “No response,” codes are not mutually exclusive, so percentages can add up to more than 100%.

We compared the frequency with which children generated metacognitive definitions of learning versus playing. Overall, children were more likely to generate metacognitive definitions of playing than learning, McNemar χ 2 (1, N = 92) = 6.26, p = .01. Fifty-six children (60.87%) generated abstract metacognitive definitions of both concepts, and 18 children (19.57%) generated such a definition of play but not learning, while only 4 (4.35%) generated such a definition of learning but not play, and 14 (15.22%) generated no such definitions.

How did children believe that playing and learning related to one another?

To answer this question, we first examined the number of examples children gave of playing and learning together. The frequency of such examples is shown in Table 2 . The number of examples children generated correlated with age, r s (90) = .38, p < .001, as well as with the presence of abstract metacognitive definitions of learning, r s (90) = .37, p < .001, and playing, r s (90) = .33, p = .001. The number of examples that children generated was also correlated with the presence of such definitions of both play and learning, r s (90) = .38, p < .001, and this correlation held when controlling for age, r s (89) = .27, p = .01.

To isolate the specific contribution of these predictors, we ran a multinomial logistic regression on the number of examples children generated. This showed an overall significant model, χ 2 (9) = 28.08, p = .001. There was no unique effect of age, -2 log likelihood = 208.55, χ 2 (3) = 3.79, p = .29, nor a unique effect of whether children generated a metacognitive aspect of playing in their definition, -2 log likelihood = 210.20, χ 2 (3) = 5.44, p = .14. There was a unique effect of whether children generated an abstract metacognitive definition of learning, -2 log likelihood = 212.66, χ 2 (3) = 7.91, p = .05.

Table 2 also shows the types of examples of playing and learning that children generated. When children generated examples of playing and learning together, they fit into one of three categories: Children talked about engaging in physical activities that allowed them to learn particular skills relevant to that activity (e.g., playing on the monkey bars allowed them to learn how to climb on the bars), engaging in structured indoor activities that involved particular topics (such as playing math games), and engaging in creative activities that allowed them to learn topics (such as drawing and learning about letters). Whether children generated at least one of these examples correlated with whether they generated process-based definitions of both play and learning, r s (90) = .33, p = .001, and this correlation held when controlling for age, r s (89) = .26, p = .01.

We then examined the number of examples children generated in the congruent versus incongruent condition. Recall that children were asked whether they could think of a time when they learned with particular attributes related to learning (congruent condition) or playing (incongruent) and playing with attributes related to playing (congruent condition) or learning (incongruent condition). We found a unique effect of condition, with children generating more examples in the congruent than the incongruent condition, Wald χ 2 (1) = 7.33, p = .007, as well as a unique effect of generating a metacognitive definition of learning, Wald χ 2 (1) = 6.48, p = .01. The unique effect of generating a metacognitive definition of playing was marginally significant, Wald χ 2 (1) = 2.93, p = .09. Age did not uniquely predict variance in this model, Wald χ 2 (1) = 1.04, p = .31.

Table 3 shows the frequency with which children generated a valid example for each question. As confirmed by the analysis above, children always generated more examples of playing and learning when presented with congruent rather than incongruent attributes. When each attribute was analyzed individually, only one difference reached significance: children generated more examples of playing while having fun than learning while having fun, Fisher’s Exact Test, p = .001. Responses to playing vs. learning with no adults, learning vs. and playing with adults, and learning vs. playing while being serious were all marginally significant, Fisher Exact Tests, p = .10, .06, and .07 respectively.

Top parentheses show which question was asked. In the congruent condition, children were asked to provide examples of times they were playing and doing what they wanted, with no adults, and having fun and examples of times they were learning when someone told them what to do, with an adult, and while being serious. In the incongruent condition, they were asked about play when someone told them what to do, with an adult, and while being serious and learning while doing what they wanted, with no adults, and while having fun. Bottom parentheses shows standard deviation.

When we compared congruous versus incongruous characteristics individually, children were also more likely to generate examples of playing while having fun than while being serious, χ 2 (1, N = 92) = 24.64, p < .001, Phi = .52, and when choosing what to do than being told, χ 2 (1, N = 92) = 3.78, p = .05, Phi = .20. When we conducted the same contrasts for learning, and children were more likely to generate example of learning with an adult than without, χ 2 (1, N = 92) = 18.90, p < .001, Phi = .45.

Definitions of playing and learning had little relation to children’s examples of playing and learning in the congruent condition after controlling for age. Children with metacognitive definitions of both play and learning were more likely to generate an example of learning when someone told them what to do, r s (43) = .33, p = .03, but this correlation was not significant when age (in months) was controlled for, r s (42) = .21, p = .17. No other attributes correlated with children’s definitions of playing or learning in the same condition. In contrast, in the incongruent condition, children who generated metacognitive definitions of both concepts were more likely to generate examples of play and learning with characteristics of the opposite activity—including learning while having fun, r s (44) = .44, p = .002, playing when someone told you what to do, r s (44) = .41, p = .005, and playing with an adult, r s (44) = .35, p = .02). All of these effects remained significant ( p ≤ .05) when controlling for age.

The present study used structured interviews to examine children’s explicit understanding of the meaning of playing and learning, and the relation between the two concepts. We found that children articulate an understanding of playing and learning as abstract processes that can happen simultaneously and share characteristics. When asked to define learning and playing, younger children in our sample were frequently unable to offer any definition, and when they did so, they focused on content (what they played or what objects they played with). In contrast, the older children in our sample were more likely to define playing based on how they played or the result of their playing. The results on learning replicate our prior findings [ 38 ], and more generally, they suggest a developmental shift toward describing both playing and learning as processes with distinct outcomes rather than using these words as labels for certain types of activities.

Articulating abstract definitions of playing developed earlier than similar articulations of definitions of learning. We speculate that children might initially have separate concepts of playing and learning. With a more sophisticated understanding of the processes involved in both playing and learning, children may develop a more undifferentiated concept that learning and playing can co-occur, depending on the qualities of a given activity. Further, children’s understanding of learning as a metacognitive process might function as a bottleneck in their ability to see play and learning as related. Children who generated abstract definitions of both concepts were more likely to generate examples of activities they considered to be both playing and learning, but it was whether children defined learning as an abstract process that was predictive. Importantly, many of the findings held when controlling for age, suggesting that other developing factors like cognitive or language capacities were not solely responsible for the development we observed.

Children who articulated abstract definitions of playing and learning were also better able to describe examples of playing with qualities of learning, and vice versa. That said, children did generate more examples of learning and playing when given congruent than incongruent attributes, suggesting that they believe certain qualities are more characteristic of one activity or the other. Children were also more likely to state that their examples of play were also examples of learning (regardless of whether the attributes inherent in the activity related to learning) than to state that their examples of learning were also play. This is also consistent with the hypothesis that children’s understanding of learning as a metacognitive process might be critical for realizing that playing and learning can be related to one another. Knowing that learning is an abstract process (as evidenced by their definition of learning) might allow children to recognize that activities like playing offer the opportunity to learn. By asking children not only for open-ended definitions of playing and learning, but also for specific examples, this study provides a more detailed description of children’s understanding of the overlap between playing and learning; their open-ended definitions reveal a belief that playing and learning are potentially related, and their examples show qualities that make playing and learning both compatible and distinct. Given that adults do not always recognize the learning opportunities in play [ 22 ], these findings show that children may be more flexible in their perceptions of the overlap between play and learning.

These interviews show that children are not only capable of reflecting on their learning, but also of reflecting on how learning can occur through play. In addition, the findings suggest that this ability is not solely dependent on age, but is tied to children’s conceptual understanding of what it means to learn. An open question is how children’s perceptions and attitudes are shaped by their early experiences. What experiences support children’s understanding of learning as an active process, and their reflection about learning that might occur in their own play? Do these types of experiences foster a metacognitive understanding of both concepts and allow children to recognize the overlap between playing and learning at younger ages? Moreover, caregivers’ and teachers’ views about play and learning, and the interactions and educational practices that stem from these beliefs, may also impact children’s exposure to and interpretation of playful learning experiences in everyday life [ 22 , 30 ].

Finally, recognizing how young children understand the intersections between playing and learning has implications for formal and informal education. For example, many informal learning environments use playful approaches to encourage and support learning, but the efficacy of such approaches might be dependent on children’s belief that learning can occur during play [ 24 ], and the opportunities they receive to reflect on playing and learning together, rather than separately. Children’s definitions of learning were most predictive in this study, and previous studies have shown that children are able to reflect on their own learning with prompting. Although we did not gather information about the types of schools that children attended in this study, future studies might examine the impact of different educational approaches and pedagogical strategies on children’s perspectives about play and learning. Educators may be able to scaffold children in reflecting on specific instances when they have learned while playing, supporting their metacognitive understanding of the many ways that learning can take place. Developing a metacognitive understanding of learning, and recognizing that learning occurs through everyday experiences like play, may also affect children’s overall engagement in learning and conceptions of themselves as learners [ 24 – 30 ]. A next step in this investigation is to see whether children’s beliefs about learning, including their self-efficacy and motivation to learn, is related to the way they play, and in turn, whether valuing and engaging in play can affect their identity as active learners.

Acknowledgments

We thank Chris Erb, Deanna Macris, and Tiffany Tassin for helpful discussion and Charlotte Crider, Rose DeRienzo, Julia Donovan, Isobel Heck, Colton Lacy, and Zoe Finiasz for assistance with data collection and analysis. We also thank the families at Providence Children’s Museum who participated in this research. Address correspondence concerning this article to: D. Sobel, CLPS Department, Box 1821, Brown University, Providence, RI 02912. Phone: 401-863-3038. Fax: 401-863-2255. Email: ude.nworB@leboS_evaD .

Funding Statement

This research was funded by National Science Foundation 1420548 and 1661068 to DMS. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

Data Availability

• PLoS One. 2020; 15(4): e0230588.

Decision Letter 0

17 Jan 2020

PONE-D-19-32302

Dear Dr. Sobel,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

First of all please accept my apologies for the delay on this decision. I have now received reviews from two expert reviewers. As you'll see, both reviewers are positively inclined towards this manuscript, and believe that it has the potential to make an important contribution to the field, as do I. I am generally in agreement with the reviewers' critiques, and most of their concerns are relatively minor. That said, each reviewer raises a more serious concern about the paper, both of which I shared. I want to highlight those concerns as particularly important to address if you revise this manuscript. 

Reviewer 1 is troubled by the linguistic nature of the task, and is worried that the conclusion that children show "immature" understanding of playing and learning as processes may reflect task demands rather than a true lack of understanding. Reviewer 1 suggests that you might conduct a similar study using a non-linguistic task. I do not believe this is strictly necessary, but I would like to see a careful argument backing up the construct validity of the linguistic task, as well as a discussion of its limitations with respect to your conclusion. 

Reviewer 2 suggests that the overarching question you are asking could be more strongly motivated. They note that some of this currently appears in the discussion, but should be highlighted in the introduction as well. In my own reading of the paper I do see the theoretical motivation for this work, but I agree that it could be more strongly laid out in the introduction.

I do hope you choose to revise this manuscript, as I think both these issues are addressable and can help clarify and solidify the contribution of this work. Please also be sure to attend to all of the more minor concerns each reviewer raises.

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Reviewer #2: Yes

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Reviewer #1: This manuscript explored children’s conceptual understanding of the relationship between playing and learning between the ages of 5-8-years-old. Children’s conceptual knowledge of playing and learning increased with age: they were more likely to define both terms as active processes and were also better able to generate examples of activities involving both playing and learning with age. Controlling for age, children with a more abstract metacognitive concept of learning were more likely to generate examples of activities involving playing and learning together. Children with a mature metacognitive understanding of playing and learning also were more likely to generate examples of playing with qualities of learning and vice versa. Thus, children’s understanding that play can lead to learning develops with age. Yet irrespective of age, conceptual knowledge of what it means to learn relates to children’s broader understanding of the relationship between play and learning.

Early childhood education has recently focused on play-based learning, yet past work suggests that young children think of play and learning as mutually exclusive. This paper adds to this literature by showing that children’s understanding of the relationship between play and learning develops with age. This work is a first step in a line of research identifying how children’s theories and beliefs about play and learning relate to their actual learning.

The main weakness of this paper is its use of a linguistic task to test conceptual change across development. The use of a linguistic task makes it unclear whether young children’s “immature” metacognitive understanding of learning and play stems from a true lack of conceptual knowledge or constraints on their expressive language ability. Thus, this paper would benefit from using a non-linguistic task, better arguments for their use of a linguistic task and its validity in young children, or stating this as a limitation in the discussion.

If the authors are able to address this major concern (as well as the minor ones laid out below), I believe this manuscript would be suitable for publication at Plos One and add valuable information to understanding the development of children’s conceptual knowledge of the relationship between playing and learning.

• The authors should state their developmental change findings in the abstract.

Introduction

• Can the authors better define what would count as evidence for an abstract understanding of learning and playing? (last paragraph page 4).

• Can the authors expand on their hypothesis that children who describe learning and playing as active processes might better be able to generate activities classified as both? How is this evidence specifically for metacognition? Couldn’t children also be using a simple heuristic that active processes share properties without really understanding how play and learning relate?

• Is there any evidence that representing play as learning relates to real world behavior in children?

• How was the sample size chosen? Do the authors have enough power to detect results?

• I found it difficult to follow the analyses in the results section. The authors should add an analysis plan section to the methods to better guide the reader through the results. In the analysis plan, they should state any composite measures they will look at and which models they used and why.

• Why (and how) did the authors combine source, process, and outcome into a single factor? This is a bit strange since it means that process was looked at twice – within this factor and alone. It’s also confusing which outcome measures they looked at individually – I suggest the authors restate them all either here or in the suggested analysis plan section.

• I have some concern about the analyses in Table 1. Since the authors are predicting binary outcome measures, did they use logistic regressions? The authors should also correct for multiple comparisons since all the tests look at features of the same construct (within play or learning). Finally, the small sample sizes in some tests (e.g. No response in playing has an n = 3) render them underpowered. The authors may want to consider a different analysis approach or note this as a limitation.

• A graph of age effects would help the reader understand when kids start verbally endorsing a metacognitive/ process use of play and learning

• Does overall length of verbal responses increase with age?

• The authors write that “children were also more likely to state that their examples of play were also examples of learning (regardless of whether the attributes inherent in the activity related to learning) than to state that their examples of learning were also play.” What do adults do? It seems that adults would also be more likely to endorse that play leads to learning than vice versa. Is this a general bias we have or truth?

Reviewer #2: PONE-D-19-32302

Title: Children’s descriptions of playing and learning as related processes

The present study examined 5- to 8-year-olds responses to their definitions of playing and learning, and examined whether children defined them as active processes or by particular types of activities. This is an interesting study and the manuscript is well written.

The introduction provides a nice overview of the literature on children’s views of play, however, the authors should provide a stronger argument as to why they believe the research questions are important. That is, why is it important that we understand children’s perspectives on the distinction between play and learning? How is it relevant for their development or learning, or how children engage in a classroom? The authors do address the importance of the research questions in the discussion, but it is important for the authors to also discuss this in the introduction.

It would be interesting to note what type of schooling the children attended (public schools, Montessori, etc.). It seems like this could influence children’s perspectives.

Were gender and age stratified in the randomization of the two conditions?

The authors should indicate the approximate length of the interviews with the children.

The analyses seem appropriate and the results section is well written.

Again, the discussion indicates why understanding children’s perspectives on play and learning is important to understand. It seems as though it would be better to include this in the introduction as well.

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Reviewer #2: No

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Decision Letter 1

PONE-D-19-32302R1

We are pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it complies with all outstanding technical requirements.

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Acceptance letter

Dear Dr. Sobel:

I am pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been deemed suitable for publication in PLOS ONE. Congratulations! Your manuscript is now with our production department.

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Dr. Lucas Payne Butler

Key Aspects of Play in Early Education

Some important considerations for integrating play in early childhood learning environments.

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With the publication of the American Academy of Pediatrics’ recent report The Power of Play , early childhood educators may be more eager to include play in young children’s experiences due to its cognitive and social and emotional benefits. While the report targets pediatricians, it provides research about how play benefits children’s learning, peer engagement, physical growth, and health, and offers insight into how play can be integrated into early childhood programs.

The report has encouraged me reflect on foundational points that guide my approach to play in early childhood. My education, experiences with young children, and upbringing in a family of teachers have influenced how I view play as a way for children build and show their understanding and knowledge of their world. For example, though I had toys, I was also encouraged to use some household items creatively—like making a “home” out of cardboard boxes with my cousins—and I pretended to be one of the X-Men with my siblings and cousins after watching the animated series.

These foundational experiences have allowed me to grasp the significant role of play in children’s upbringing and were a resource for me as I learned about the significance of play in my graduate program and my experiences with young children. At the same time, my education and experiences have also helped me understand that play is dynamic and looks different in different circumstances—there’s no single right way to play.

Ideas for Integrating Play in Early Education

There are several key aspects of play that ground my thinking on play in early childhood education.

Recognize your lens of play. As educators, our beliefs and values play a role in the type of educational environment we foster, and our experiences and culture influence how we think about play and how we nurture play in our classroom setting.

These factors influence a range of choices we make: whether we designate areas for play, how children interact and communicate, and the materials and choices we make available to children. For instance, a teacher may see play as belonging on the playground during recess or as an essential component to children’s learning .

I see play as a valuable experience for children starting in the early years and progressing to later ages. This perspective was largely influenced by Vivian Paley, who has noted that fantasy and dramatic play are “the glue that binds together all other pursuits,” contributing to children’s academic learning, artistic interests, and social development , as well as providing a way for children to process their understanding of the world .

These forms of play can occur in many different areas of an early childhood setting—the block area, sensory stations, or a specific area set up for dramatic play. The idea is that while children do play on the playground, it’s also beneficial when play occurs throughout the day at other times in the program.

Resist the urge to do play one way. What play looks like will differ among children and their communities . Children may be accustomed to pretending to be superheroes, reenacting everyday scenarios, or playing through games or jokes. Additionally, children may embed elements of their culture in their play , revealing family beliefs and aspects of the language spoken at home or within their cultural community.

Children’s playmates vary by culture and may include parents and other family members of different ages, and peers their age. Therefore, some children may be inclined to play with educators, seeing them as collaborators in the experience, while others may not. Children may interact with us in different ways than we are accustomed to.

Taking into account the role of culture in play has helped me become open-minded to seeing how play manifests in children as well as how families view play. It also helped me think about the play experiences I offer—child-initiated, adult-facilitated, etc. By noticing these details, I’m able to create spaces that are more supportive of varieties of play; I may have children recreate roles from a story, or set up an area as a restaurant or hospital to foster dramatic and sociodramatic play with props, or make a game station with board and card games.

Have a variety of materials to support children’s play. Having diverse play materials will help enrich your environment. Stories from books can be used to encourage play during center time, and placing combinations of different objects throughout the room can stimulate children’s creativity. Offering a range of materials—a variety of shapes and sizes of blocks, dolls and hand puppets, items from nature—increases the potential of exposing children to things they haven’t experienced before.

It’s also important to consider how all children in the setting can access these materials—ensuring that they’re visible, reachable, and identifiable for all learners creates a supportive and inclusive environment.

I still have experiences where the children’s familial or cultural attitudes about play conflict with my beliefs and approach, and occasions when colleagues and I differ in perspective. This is where communication becomes essential—we just need to remember that we’re all trying to do our best to support the children.

Having clarity about who I am as an educator and researcher and an understanding of concepts that ground my thinking helps me make intentional choices about play and its integration so that I’m both supporting children’s growth and being aware there’s no one-size-fits-all approach to play.

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Play is an important part of children's learning and development. Find articles on how to intentionally connect play and learning, ideas to share with families, and the latest research about learning and play.

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Journal article

Teacher participation in young children's dramatic play

Sarah Young, Susan Edwards, Joce Nuttall

JOURNAL OF EARLY CHILDHOOD RESEARCH | SAGE PUBLICATIONS INC | Published : 2024

DOI: 10.1177/1476718X241258604

Socio-dramatic play is an everyday occurrence in early childhood education as children create narratives together in shared imagined worlds. The teacher’s role in this type of play is less clear and this paper draws on a study using Lindqvist’s “playworlds” approach to gain insight into how teachers participate in children’s play. In applying Kravtsov and Kravtsova’s concept of children’s “double subjectivity” in dramatic play, the paper argues that teachers can also maintain dual affect roles—those of teacher outside the play, and co-player within the play—to co-create with children in their dramatic play narratives. In this study, four teachers in Melbourne, Australia participated in weekl..

University of Melbourne Researchers