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Results for “Play and Playthings”

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At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1975

The search for structural principles in children's manipulative play: a parallel with linguistic development.

Our study investigated the role of 3 structural principles--hierarchical complexity, interruption, and role change--in the development of children's construction play. The 3 principles are formally parallel to dimensions of language structure. Children from 2 to 6 were required to use varying combinations of structural features in order to build a series of modeled constructions. Predictions about the order of difficulty of our constructions, formulated on the basis of their constituent structural features, were confirmed by the results. Hierarchical complexity and role change, features of "deep structure", added significantly to the difficulty of a construction strategy. Interruption, a "surface-structure" feature, had, in contrast, a minimal effect. The results lend further support to the notion of a cognitive organization common to language and other modes of behavior.

Age Factors↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Association between children's dental behavior and play behavior.

The results of this study showed that clinical distinctions can be made regarding the behavior of children in the dental setting and that these distinctions are reflected in the behavior of these children in an easily-arranged play situation. The existence of such associations of behavior presents the possibility that play behavior may be a reliable predictor of maladaptive dental behavior. If so, the incorporation of a play dental area into a dental office would be an inexpensive and convenient method of intercepting potential problem dental patients. If the results of this study can be replicated, they would support the initiation of a study to predict the behavior of children in the dental setting by means of easily scorable aspects of their play behavior in a simulated dental environment. Special management considerations could then be made to prevent disruptive behavior at subsequent appointments. The results also point up the tendency of problem patients to avoid certain aspects of the play dental experience. This suggests a possible treatment potential for the dental play area, using it as an instrument to desensitize appropriate patients to those aspects of dental treatment which distress them, and thereby reduce their anxieties, prior to actual dental treatment.

Child Behavior↗
PubMed1992

Promoting interaction during sociodramatic play: teaching scripts to typical preschoolers and classmates with disabilities.

We investigated the effects of teaching sociodramatic scripts on subsequent interaction among three triads, each containing 2 typical children and 1 child with autistic characteristics. The same type and rate of teacher prompts were implemented throughout structured play observations to avoid the confounding effects of script training and teacher prompting. After learning the scripts, all children demonstrated more frequent theme-related social behavior. These improvements in social-communicative interaction were replicated with the training of three sociodramatic scripts (i.e., pet shop, carnival, magic show) according to a multiple baseline design. These effects were maintained during the training of successive scripts and when the triads were reconstituted to include new but similarly trained partners. Results provided support for the inclusion of systematic training of scripts to enhance interaction among children with and without disabilities during sociodramatic play.

Autistic Disorder↗
PubMed2026

Perspectives on play for young children with disabilities in South Africa: a qualitative study.

PURPOSE: All children have the right to play. Children with disabilities are often excluded from play activities. We aimed to explore caregivers', older community members', and key stakeholders' perceptions and experiences of play as influenced by socio-cultural, institutional, and public policy factors. These insights informed the early stages of intervention development. MATERIALS AND METHODS: In-depth semi-structured interviews (n = 23) were conducted with caregivers of children with disabilities aged 2-5 years, older community members, and key stakeholders who had experience working with children with disabilities. Data were thematically analysed, following a socio-ecological approach. RESULTS: Four themes emerged: (i) making play doable and affordable, (ii) play away the challenges, (iii) playing together or not, and (iv) play opportunities. The results highlighted how intrapersonal and interpersonal factors and experiences shaped perspectives of play and play-based interventions for children with disabilities. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings emphasise the importance of a community-informed approach in grounding the early stages of intervention development, which may help to ensure that a future play-based intervention is contextually appropriate.

Humans↗
PubMed1979

Hand-held toy squeaker during carotid endarterectomy in the awake patient.

A toy squeaker held by the patient in the contralateral hand is used to monitor cerebral circulation during carotid endarterectomy. Regional anesthesia--cervical plexus block--allowed the patient to cooperate and give useful information, especially during the crucial period of test clamping. In a series of 300 cases, during a period of five years, it was instrumental in avoiding brain damage in 6% of the cases.

Anesthesia, Conduction↗
PubMed1977

The aggressive characteristics of abused and neglected children.

Awareness of child abuse as a serious social problem has risen sharply in recent years, yet there has been only limited and inadequate research on the abused child's growth and development. This study investigated the aggressive characteristics of young abused children with those of nonabused-neglected and normal children, a comparison not previously made. Results indicated that abused children exhibited significantly more aggression than the nonabused-negected and normal children on TAT stories and in a free play environment. Both the abused and the nonabused-neglected groups demonstrated significantly more aggression in a school setting than did normals. The findings lend empirical verification to previous descriptions of abused children as overly aggressive and support the social learning formulation that children exposed to aggressive parental models will demonstrate aggressive characteristics outside the home. The data are also consistent with prior research that links physical punishment in the home with hyperaggressiveness in children. The need for early identification and treatment of abused children is discussed.

Aggression↗
PubMed1975

Behavioral and hormonal effects of attachment object separation in surrogate-peer-reared and mother-reared infant rhesus monkeys.

Mother-reared and surrogate-peer-reared rhesus monkeys were separated from their respective attachment objects at 6 months of age and tested for the following 9 weeks to determine their home-cage behavior and their pituitary-adrenocortical responses to stress. Both groups displayed a strong immediate behavioral response to separation which was characterized by increased vocalization, increased locomotion, and decreased self-play. However, the surrogate-peer-reared infants showed a subsequent recovery in their levels of self-play whereas the mother-reared infants instead developed stereotypic behavior patterns such as repetitive pacing. The 2 groups displayed similar plasma cortisol responses to weekly sessions in an apparatus equipped with animated toy "monsters". Mother-reared but not surrogate-peer-reared subjects, however, also manifested elevated cortisol levels when an animal in an adjacent cage was captured and removed for stress testing. Mother-reared infant monkeys thus responded in a stronger and more prolonged manner to the loss of their attachment object than surrogate-peer-reared infants. These results suggest that infant rhesus monkeys form stronger attachments to monkey mothers than to inanimate surrogate mothers, a phenomenon which has not been as clearly demonstrated using other indices of attachment strength.

Animals↗
PubMed1977

Exploration and play with objects in domestic kittens.

The responses of 12 kittens to unfamiliar and familiar objects was tested. Four categories of behavior were measured: exploration, play-exploration, play, and non-manipulatory contact. The results indicated that exploration and play-exploration were used for longer durations with unfamiliar objects and play was used for longer durations with familiar objects. Rank-order correlations between the measures showed that objects explored were not correlated with objects played with or play-explored. Analyses of the rankings revealed that small size and mobility were important object properties of play. The results suggest that exploration involves learning about stimulus properties, play-exploration involves learning about perceptual-motor properties, and play involves learning to coordinate movements with those of moving objects.

Animals↗
PubMed1977

Alleviation of separation distress in 3 breeds of young dogs.

Twenty-four puppies (8 each of Shetland sheepdogs, Telomians, and beagles) served as subjects in this experiment which was designed to examine the effectiveness of 12 stimulus conditions (food, toys, canine contact, and human contact) on alleviation of separation-induced distress vocalization. Testing consisted of a prestimulus trial, stimulus trial, and post-stimulus trial each session 3 times a week from 4 to 8 weeks after birth. Overall results showed human contact to be the most effective, followed by canine contact, toys, and food. Breed differences were significant in only 2 of the stimulus conditions. In the typical case of effective treatment, the vocalization rate declined from the prestimulus trial to a low point in the stimulus trial and then increased again in the post-stimulus trial.

Age Factors↗
PubMed1992

The energetic costs of rough-and-tumble play in the juvenile rat.

The metabolic costs of rough-and-tumble play behavior were studied in juvenile rats. Using indirect calorimetry, it was determined that energy expenditure during play is increased by 66-104% over the resting metabolic rate, indicating that play accounts for between 2% and 3% of the total daily energy budget of the rat. In a subsequent experiment, food intake and body weight were monitored for 3 weeks in rats allowed to play for 1 hr/day and in rats not allowed to play. While the body weights of the two groups did not differ significantly from each other, those rats allowed to play ate 7% more over the 3-week period than did those rats not given an opportunity to play. These data are consistent with previous reports describing the energetic costs of mammalian play, with play accounting for less than 10% of the daily energy budget in three species tested so far. These data are also consistent with viewing play as a type of exercise and may lead to a better understanding of putative benefits of this behavior.

Aging↗
PubMed1992

The effects of early social isolation on the motivation for social play in juvenile rats.

Fifteen-day-old rats were subjected to one of three housing conditions: mother-and-peer (family), peer, and isolation conditions. At 24 days of age, all subjects were rehoused individually. In Experiment 1, play behaviors were monitored in like-raised pairs. Despite their gross lack of social experience, isolation-reared subjects did not exhibit a deficit in frequencies of rough-and-tumble play. It is concluded that the fundamental motivation for rough-and-tumble play is relatively independent of prior learning in rats. Indeed, their elevated dorsal contacts suggested that isolation-raised subjects may have higher appetitive motivation for play. In Experiment 2, the levels of social motivation were compared between family- and isolation-raised animals, using a T-maze. The isolation-raised animals made reliably more choices for social interaction reward over food reward than family-raised animals. Although inconclusive, the results from the two experiments suggest that prolonged social isolation increases the appetitive motivation for social play.

Animals↗
PubMed1992

Arthritis community education by leather puppet (wayang kulit) shadow play in rural Indonesia (Java).

As part of the WHO/International League Against Rheumatism (ILAR) sponsored community organized programme for the control of rheumatic disease (COPCORD), an arthritis community education programme (ACE) was undertaken utilizing the traditional form of entertainment in a rural area in Central Java-the wayang. The point prevalence rate of musculoskeletal complaints was estimated in 4683 men & women aged 15 years and over by house-to-house interviews. From 1105 respondents recording recent musculoskeletal pain, 844 were randomly selected and half the latter attended a puppet shadow play (wayang) incorporating the ACE. The other half, matched for age, sex and educational level who did not see the play, served as controls. A questionnaire containing biphasic choices of correct or incorrect ways of performing activities of daily living (ADL) to minimize musculoskeletal problems was administered to the whole group before, 1 month and 6 months after the wayang. Increased knowledge of correct ways of performing ADL (correct ADL) in the intervention group compared with the control group at 1 and 6 months after wayang was significant (P less than 0.05). Comprehension of correct ADL following the wayang could be demonstrated even in subjects who were illiterate and those who had attended primary school only. Retention of knowledge at the 6 month assessment declined more markedly in the illiterate group. ACE by wayang was shown to be feasible and effective in transferring knowledge on ADL to people with musculoskeletal problems in the sample population in Java. This effect could be shown even in the poorly educated section of the community.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

Adolescent↗
PubMed1992

Hurricane Hugo blows down the broccoli: preschoolers' post-disaster play and adjustment.

This article reports highlights from over 200 parents' observations of their preschoolers' play and verbalizations in the year following Hurricane Hugo. Commonly reported activities included reenactment and discussion of the event in multiple mediums, personification of "Hugo", and expression of fears related to storms. Precocious concern for others, insight, and vocabulary were also noted. In these intact, relatively high functioning families, parents seemed able to facilitate their youngsters' adjustment without outside intervention.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed1992

Social stimulation and joint attention in young autistic children.

The present study was designed to examine the effects of social stimulation on the joint attention behavior of 20 autistic children under 6 years of age, 20 receptive language-matched Down syndrome children, and 20 receptive language matched-normally-developing infants. Children's social and non-social engagement states were measured during two experimental play sessions and during free play with parent. For all groups, joint attention was increased when adult play behavior closely followed and was contingent on the behavior of the children; however, the autistic children were significantly less responsive to the experimental manipulation than control subjects. In contrast, the autistic children were no less responsive in terms of other forms of social engagement. Results are interpreted as supporting a model of joint attention deficits in autism that involves factors inherent to the disorder in transaction with social context.

Attention↗