Is Pretend Play Overrated For Child Development?
Main Category: Pediatrics / Children's Health
Also Included In: Psychology / Psychiatry
Article Date: 29 Aug 2012 - 0:00 PDT
A new study by University of Virginia, published online in the journal Psychological Bulletin states that pretend play is not as important to child development as researchers previously thought.
Pretend play can be any type of play using imagination to make toys talk or creating sounds coming from toys, or pretending to be in a fictional situation, such as cops and robbers or house. This play can occur when the child is playing by themselves, other children, or their parents and other adults.
40 years of studies have claimed that psychologists, teachers, and parents believe that pretend play is a normal and important part of a child's healthy development. However, after the new study, beliefs on this topic may change.
For their study, University of Virginia researchers analyzed more than 150 previous studies to find the positive relationship between pretend play and the development of children's mental health. They found minimum evidence supporting this notion.
Lead author Angeline Lillard, U.Va professor of psychology in the College of Arts & Sciences, says that the previous "evidence" claiming pretend play is directly associated with healthy child development is from "flawed methodology". Whoever was writing this evidence may have raised children who played pretend and therefore they were biased about what was actually showing up on the results.
She continued:
"We found no good evidence that pretend play contributes to creativity, intelligence or problem-solving. However, we did find evidence that it just might be a factor contributing to language, storytelling, social development and self-regulation."
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