The Social, Emotional, and Intellectual Benefits of Play
When children are happily at play in a kindergarten there is a wonderful hum in the room. A deep sense of well being emanates from the children. This should be reason enough to foster and protect play, but research also points to a number of important gains linked to a child’s ability to engage in healthy, creative play. Sara Smilansky, an Israeli researcher, studied children at play in Israel and the United States. She defines dramatic play as taking place when a child pretends to be someone else and sociodramatic play as those times when two or more children cooperate in such role–playing. She summarizes her research as follows: “The results point to dramatic and sociodramatic play as a strong medium for the development of cognitive and socioemotional skills.”
Here is summary of the gains she found directly linked to a child’s ability to engage in dramatic and sociodramatic play:
- Gains in Cognitive-Creative Activities
- Better verbalization
- Richer vocabulary
- Higher language comprehension
- Higher language level
- Better problem-solving strategies
- More curiosity
- Better ability to take on the perspective of another
- Higher intellectual competence
- Gains in Socioemotional Activities
- More playing with peers
- More group activity
- Better peer cooperation
- Reduced aggression
- Better ability to take on the perspective of others
- More empathy
- Better control of impulsive actions
- Better prediction of others’ preferences and desires
- Better emotional and social adjustment
- More innovation
- More imaginativeness
- Longer attention span
- Greater attention ability
- Performance of more conservation tasks
Read more of Joan Almon’s article: The Vital Role of Play in Childhood Click Here
