Research Articles

Subject(s):
Author(s): Sawyer, J.E., Goldstein, T.
NIFP Rating: 4

Children’s drawings are implicated in their emotional, cognitive, artistic, and semiotic development, raising the question of how early educators may best facilitate drawing development. This study compared three activities to determine their relative efficacy in promoting children’s drawing. Seventy-seven preschoolers from a Head Start program were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: storybook reading, […]

Subject(s):
Author(s): Bentley, D.F.
NIFP Rating: 4

What does it mean to engage in transformational learning with young children? In a time when “technology ” is hallowed as all-important, how do we frame young children as empowered, critical thinkers around technologies, instead of just consumers? This article looks closely at a child-centered, emergent curricular process within an early childhood classroom. Framing the […]

Author(s): Cordoni, G., Nicotra, V., Palagi, E.
NIFP Rating: 4

Due to their playful propensity, dogs are a good model to test some hypotheses about play dynamics (length, asymmetry, features of players) and communication (play bow [PBOW]; relaxed open-mouth [ROM] display). We video-recorded 203 play sessions between dogs in an off-leash dog park in Palermo, Italy. Contrary to the expectation, play asymmetry (particularly high in […]

Author(s): Meir Dviri, M.
NIFP Rating: 3

Mythic symbolic type is a unique cultural structure that permits no exit to the one who has lost his “self ” to it. The semi-commune Little Home housed a community of mythic symbolic types which engendered a ritual of their own in which the men trapped within the type moved between its two edges, purity […]

Subject(s):
Author(s): Hamilton, D.A., Magcalas, C.M., Barto, D., Bird, C.W., Rodriguez, C.I., Fink, B.C., Pellis, S.M., Davies, S., Savage, D.D.
NIFP Rating: 4

Alterations in social behavior are among the major negative consequences observed in children with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASDs). Several independent laboratories have demonstrated robust alterations in the social behavior of rodents exposed to alcohol during brain development across a wide range of exposure durations, timing, doses, and ages at the time of behavioral quantification. […]

Subject(s):
Author(s): Pellis, S.M., Field, E.F., Smith, L.K., Pellis, V.C.
NIFP Rating: 4

play fighting is the most commonly occurring form of social play in juvenile mammals. Typically, males engage in more play righting than females, and this difference has been shown to depend on the action of androgens perinatally. It is generally believed that the differences in play fighting between the sexes are quantitative and do not […]

Subject(s):
Author(s): Himmler, B.T., Pellis, V.C., Pellis, S.M.
NIFP Rating: 4

play fighting in the rat involves attack and defense of the nape of the neck, which if contacted, is gently nuzzled with the snout. Because the movements of one animal are countered by the actions of its partner, play fighting is a complex, dynamic interaction. This dynamic complexity raises methodological problems about what to score […]

Author(s): Himmler, B.T., Kisko, T.M., Euston, D.R., Kolb, B., Pellis, S.M.
NIFP Rating: 4

During playful interactions, rats emit increased levels of 50-kHz vocalizations. It is possible that these vocalizations are used as play signals that promote and maintain playful contact. The study investigated this possibility. It was predicted that if these vocalizations are used as play signals, they should be more prevalent (1) before an attack, (2) in […]

Author(s): Gartstein, M.A., Bridgett, D.J., Young, B.N., J. Panksepp, Power, T.
NIFP Rating: 3

Effortful control (EC) refers to the ability to inhibit a dominant response to perform a subdominant one and has been shown as protective against a myriad of difficulties. Research examining precursors of EC has been limited to date, and in this study, infancy contributors to toddler EC were examined. Specifically, parent/family background variables (e.g., education, […]

Subject(s):
Author(s): Kuntz, A.M., Guyotte, K.W.
NIFP Rating: 3

As an ongoing practice, work can never be fully accounted for or described. Furthermore, the notion of play is often situated in opposition to work in Western cultures – as though work and play cannot occur simultaneously or even within the same location. In this article, we engage in a bit of a quandary – […]

Subject(s):
Author(s): Leontieva, M.S., Gryazeva, E.D., Arkhipova, S.A.
NIFP Rating: 3

The article overviews findings of the multiannual studies geared to improve the physical education models for preschool orphans. Based on the study findings, we offered and tested a few new physical education models for preschool orphans including: scripted role-plays with an emphasis on the entertaining aspect, such as finger games, elements of theatrical performances to […]

Subject(s):
Author(s): Bauer, M.E.E., Giles, A.R.
NIFP Rating: 3

Parents’ perspectives on their children’s outdoor risky play behaviours influence their children’s adoption of safety strategies and their children’s approach to risky and dangerous situations (Brussoni & Olsen, 2011). Over the past decade, researchers have explored many Canadian mothers’ and fathers’ perspectives on this topic; however, to date, there has been a lack of research […]

Subject(s):
Author(s): Li, C., Seymour, M.
NIFP Rating: 3

Through a questionnaire and Photo-Projective Methods (PPM), this study investigates how children perceive their neighbourhood environment for walking and outdoor play. It aims to understand what features children prefer when they walk and play in their neighbourhood. A total of 86 survey packages were mailed to households with children between 8 and 12†years old; 42 […]

Author(s): McGhee, P.
NIFP Rating: 3

This article examines available (mainly anecdotal) evidence related to the experience of humor among chimpanzees and gorillas in the wild, in captivity and following systematic sign language training. Humor is defined as one form of symbolic play. Positive evidence of object permanence, cross-modal perception, deferred imitation and deception among chimpanzees and gorillas is used to […]

Subject(s):
Author(s): Brown, A.M.L., Stenros, J.
NIFP Rating: 3

Welcome to the Adult Play Special Issue. In this introduction, we (the editors) explain the origin of the collection and our unique take on what adult play means as a term. Rather than be specifically about sexual play, the term adult is taken here to reference the age of players. The article included how adults […]

Author(s): Lin, X., Xie, S., Li, H.
NIFP Rating: 3

The present study explores the constructs of Chinese mothers’ and fathers’ engagement in toddlers’ play in the daily context. A sample of 238 parents of toddlers (M = 30.43 months, SD = 3.45) completed a newly-developed instrument, the Chinese Parental Involvement in Toddler Play Activity Questionnaire (CPITPAQ), to report their play engagement. First, factor analyses […]

Subject(s):
Author(s): Crane, J.L., Davis, C.S.
NIFP Rating: 3

Terror Management Theory (TMT), derived from Ernest Becker’s The Denial of Death (1974), maintains that humans are motivated by the desire to overcome our fear of death by constructing meaning and significance in our lives in various ways, including making light of our mortality. In this paper, we examine the role of play as seriously […]

Author(s): Grindheim, L.T.
NIFP Rating: 3

The voices of both early childhood education teachers and children tend to be weak in the choir of agents that constitute the aims and practices of early childhood education. In this article, a video that a teacher made of four children playing dragons, followed by open-ended interviews exploring why she found this particular activity of […]

Author(s): Bontinck, C., Warreyn, P., Demurie, E., Bruyneel, E., Boterberg, S., Roeyers, H.
NIFP Rating: 3

This study compared sibling interactions between 24-month-old children and their older sibling with ASD (high-risk; n = 24) with 24-month-old children and their typically developing older sibling (low-risk; n = 32). First, high-risk sibling pairs showed lower levels of positive behaviour and younger siblings of children with ASD imitated their older sibling less. Second, in […]

Author(s): Dyck, A.C.F., Ivanco, T.L.
NIFP Rating: 3

Purpose: Young children have a high risk of concussion or mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI). Children often appear healthy soon after mTBI, but some have pervasive cognitive and/or motor impairments. Understanding underlying mechanisms recruited after concussion may help for return to play protocols and mitigating what might be lifelong impairments. Methods: We investigated molecular and […]

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