6 
In this longitudinal study we examined the stability of exploratory play in infancy and its relation to cognitive development in early childhood. We assessed infants’ (N = 130, mean age at enrollment = 12.02 months, SD = 3.5 months; range: 5-19 months) exploratory play four times over 9 months. Exploratory play was indexed by infants’ […]
8 
Humans, like all mammals, require extensive nurturing after birth in order to facilitate essential psychobiological attachment and other developmental processes. Animal, human psychological, psychiatric, neurobiological, and anthropological research provides converging evidence for the importance and quality of early life conditions for optimal brain and body system development, approximating that which may have transpired in our […]
3 
Today’s children are growing up with smart toys, Internetconnected devices that use artificial intelligence to drive interactive play. In a prior research study, we found that children ages 4-10 perceive these toys as worthy of trust [5]. This leads us to inquire if children in this age range could be directly influenced by these devices. […]
6 
Crib speech, the monologue speech of a young child before s/he falls asleep, has been examined in very few studies to date. Private speech has been explored in relation to potential motivational and self-regulatory functions, but few studies have examined private speech in pretend play or pre-sleep contexts. This longitudinal case study examines the crib […]
4 Purpose: The consensus is that physical activity (PA) and sedentary behavior (SB) are independent behaviors, but past findings suggest that they may be influenced by common underlying factors. To clarify this issue, we examined associations between enjoyment of PA and participation in both PA and SB in a large sample of 4th- to 12th-grade US […]
6 
Infants exhibit visual preferences for gender-typed objects (e.g., dolls, toy vehicles) that parallel the gender-typed play preferences of preschool-aged children, but the developmental stability of individual differences in early emerging gender-typed preferences has not yet been characterized. In the present study, we examined the longitudinal association between infants’ (N= 51) performance on an objectpreference task, […]
3 
In small-scale societies children have great access to observing adult roles and this is often reflected in their play, however very few empirical studies of work-themed play have been conducted despite substantial implications that this type of play has for social learning. The current study describes the work-themed play patterns of 1 1/2- to 4-year-old […]
5 
This paper discusses collaborative research between academics and practitioners to enhance the level of play engagement in nine groups of toddlers in The Netherlands. Researchers and pedagogic counsellors designed a structured experiment to test the effects of four pedagogical strategies: confronting the children with a rearranged activity corner; free play, with the teacher available at […]
4 
This study sought to identify the games played and preferred by children during school recess in the so-called first cycle, breaking that information down by gender and school year. A questionnaire was applied in two basic education schools in northern Portugal. The sample included 317 students from the four years in that stage – 167 […]
6 
The goal of this study is to inform teachers’ practice by identifying specific language strategies that young children use in their play and suggesting ways that teachers can build on our findings to support students’ language and literacy. Deductive analyses of video-recordings of 5-year old children playing at the sand center revealed that children used […]
2 
School counselors are often the first professionals to become aware of the mental health problems of young children. Given that play therapy is the most developmentally appropriate approach for elementary school-age children, it is important to understand why some school counselors use play therapy and others do not. The purpose of this study was to […]
8 
This study aims to explore the pedagogical potential of outdoor play situations, considering the educational goals established in the Portuguese Pedagogical Guidelines for 0-3-year-old children (ongoing work), namely development of a sense of security and positive self-esteem; development of curiosity and exploratory impetus; and development of social and communication skills. Following a qualitative methodology, during […]
3 
The purpose of this research is to examine cultural difference in Turkish and American preschoolers’ play, aggression and victimization behaviours. The research has been performed in a nursery school affiliated to a university in one of the big cities of Turkey and in two nursery schools affiliated to a university in one of the Northern […]
2 
The purpose of this study was to explore children’s play during recess and in physical education (PE) classes from the perspective of Huizinga’s theory of play. Specifically, this study investigated how primary school PE teachers used the concept of play, how it was understood by student participants, and how the participants engaged in the different […]
10 
Paul MacLean’s concept of epistemics – the neuroscientific study of subjective experience – requires animal brain research that can be related to predictions concerning the internal experiences of humans. Especially robust relationships come from studies of the emotional/affective processes that arise from subcortical brain systems shared by all mammals. Recent affective neuroscience research has yielded […]
8 
Play has long been considered as either insignificant or irrelevant to normal behaviour development, or as important in the onset of normal behaviour development. Two fundamental factors that have caused this confusion about play are discussed in this chapter: the tendency for play to be defined as without immediate purpose, and the tendency of utilitarian […]
7 
Objective: Outdoor free play is important for preschoolers’ physical activity, health, and development. Certain temperamental characteristics are associated with obesity, nutrition, and sedentary behaviors in preschoolers, but the relationship between temperament and outdoor play has not been examined. This study examined whether there is an association between temperament and outdoor play in young children. Methods: […]
8 
The current study investigated the extent to which a semi-structured block play intervention supported growth in mathematics and executive functioning for preschool children using a randomized controlled design. A secondary aim was to explore whether differential intervention effects emerged for children from various socioeconomic backgrounds, indicated by parental education level. Participants included 59 preschool children. […]
6 
Exergames, more specifically console-based exergames, are generally enjoyed by adolescents and known to increase physical activity. Nevertheless, they have a reduced usage over time and demonstrate little effectiveness over the long term. In order to increase playing time, mobile exergames may increase potential playing time, but need to be engaging and integrated in everyday life. […]
5 
Previous research has suggested that when a social partner, such as a parent, pays attention to an object, this increases the attention that infants pay to that object during spontaneous, naturalistic play. There are two contrasting reasons why this might be: first, social context may influence increases in infants’ endogenous (voluntary) attention control; second, social […]
