Pretend Play and Cognitive Development

Characteristics of peer play in children with visual impairments

“…This suggests that the observed symbolic play variability within the population is most likely the result of other individual or environmental characteristics (Bishop et al, 2005;Lewis et al, 2000;Rogers & Puchalski, 1984;Verver et al, 2019a). Since symbolic play is considered to be a marker of cognitive functioning and language ability and has many social elements that promote peer interaction (Bishop et al, 2005;Lifter, Foster-Sanda, Arzamarski, Briesch, & McClure, 2011;Nielsen, 2015;Uren & Stagnitti, 2009), it is important to better understand causes of symbolic play variability.…”

Causal learning, counterfactual reasoning and pretend play: a cross-cultural comparison of Peruvian, mixed- and low-socioeconomic status U.S. children

“…Causal learning, counterfactual reasoning, and pretend play: a cross-cultural comparison of Peruvian, mixed-and lowsocioeconomic status U.S. childrenChildren from a variety of backgrounds spontaneously engage in pretend play 1 . Pretend play universally emerges in typically developing human children between 18 and 24 months of age, and the frequency and complexity of pretence increases during early childhood (for reviews see [3,4]). Even children from cultures where adults discourage pretence spontaneously pretend [3,5], suggesting that pretence may have an innate and evolutionary basis.…”

“…In this work, we use the broader definition of counterfactual reasoning, meaning any reasoning about alternatives that conflict with reality 3. These questions required children to reason about the future effects of present counterfactual identities, in contrast with some previous work which has asked children to reason about the effect of counterfactual past actions on present events 4. The counterfactual effects and pretend effects questions directly parallel each other-one asks about the counterfactual causal effect of the block given a counterfactual identity, and one asks about the pretend causal effect of the block given a pretend identity.…”