Freud saw play as a means for children to release pent-up emotions and to deal with emotionally distressing situations in a more secure environment. Vygotsky and Piaget saw play as a way of children developing their intellectual abilities (Dyer & Moneta, 2006). Piaget created stages of play that correspond with his stages of cognitive development. The stages are:
Table \(\PageIndex{1}\): Piaget’s Stages of Play (Cognitive and Social Types of Play (n.d.). Retrieved from
https://groundsforplay.com/cognitive-and-social-forms-play
)
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Stage
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Description
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Functional Play
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Exploring, inspecting, and learning through repetitive physical activity.
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Symbolic Play
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The ability to use objects, actions, or ideas to represent other objects, actions, or ideas and may include taking on roles.31
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Constructive Play
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Involves experimenting with objects to build things 32; learning things that were previously unknown with hands-on manipulations of materials.
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Games with Rules
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Imposes rules that must be followed by everyone that is playing; the logic and order involved forms that the foundations for developing game playing strategy 33
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While Freud, Piaget, and Vygostsky looked at play slightly differently, all three theorists saw play as providing positive outcomes for children.
Mildred Parten (1932) observed two to five year-old children and noted six types of play. Three types she labeled as non-social (unoccupied, solitary, and onlooker) and three types were categorized as social play (parallel, associative, and cooperative). The table below describes each type of play. Younger children engage in non-social play more than those who are older; by age five associative and cooperative play are the most common forms of play (Dyer & Moneta, 2006). 34
Table \(\PageIndex{2}\): Parten’s Classification of Types of Play (
Lifespan Development - Module 5: Early Childhood
by
Lumen Learning
references
Psyc 200 Lifespan Psychology
by Laura Overstreet, licensed under
CC BY 4.0
)
|
Category
|
Description
|
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Unoccupied Play
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Children’s behavior seems more random and without a specific goal. This is the least common form of play.
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Solitary Play
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Children play by themselves, do not interact with others, nor are they engaging in similar activities as the children around them.
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Onlooker Play
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Children are observing other children playing. They may comment on the activities and even make suggestions, but will not directly join the play.
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Parallel Play
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Children play alongside each other, using similar toys, but do not directly act with each other
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Associative Play
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Children will interact with each other and share toys but are not working toward a common goal.
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Cooperative Play
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Children are interacting to achieve a common goal. Children may take on different tasks to reach that goal.
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