Lecture 11 Play

Question 1

Definition of play according to Hoffnung (2015)

Answer 1

Activities of non-serious nature, highly individual, engaged in for pleasure, may not be associated with reality.

Question 2

Stages of pretend play development

Answer 2

1. Functional play (cause-effect. eg. press button)
2. Simulation of actions (~18mo) pretend call using toy
3. Simulation with substitution (~2.5y) substitue phone with banana
4. Less egocentric simulations (~3y), play with teddy, engaging with parents
5. Socio-dramatic play, play with others

Question 3

Piaget’s view of pretend play

Answer 3

As a key part of development, Marker of semiotic function development; shows symbolic thought but indicates child doesn’t understand reality; decreases with age as reality understanding improves

Question 4

Vygotsky’s view of pretend play

Answer 4

Children create their own ZPD in play; peers scaffold learning; allows practicing skills they don’t have in reality

Question 5

Autism and pretend play

Answer 5

• Hyper-connected neuron wiring making the world an intense sensory experience
• Preference for literal language.
• Safety and comfort in routines and rules
• Strong and narrow interests and subjects

Autistic children do engage in pretend play if modeled for them.
The sophistication of their pretend play is related to their ToM skills.
They may be less likely to spontaneously learn pretend play from peers via social scaffolding

Question 6

Key components of cognitive development

Answer 6

Attention, recognition, memory, reasoning, problem-solving, language;
interlinked with physical/social/emotional/cultural development

Question 7

Ancient views of infant cognition

Answer 7

Plato: innate knowledge Aristotle: all knowledge from experience

Question 8

Purpose of studying newborn reflexes

Answer 8

Indicate neurological status; show adaptive survival value; most drop out as voluntary actions develop

Question 9

Common newborn reflexes

Answer 9

Grasping, rooting, sucking/swallowing, Moro (startle), crawling, stepping

Question 10

Newborn visual capabilities

Answer 10

Poor acuity (~14cm focus); grey scale at birth;
color by 1mo;
adult like level by 2 mo；
track objects by 4mo；
prefer faces/moving stimuli

Question 11

Preferential looking technique

Answer 11

Method to infer infant perception by measuring what they look at longer (e.g., faces vs. scrambled patterns)

Question 12

Newborn auditory capabilities

Answer 12

Prefer mother’s voice;
discriminate familiar stories;
prepare for language (dinstinguish own language by 6mo)

Question 13

Infant taste/smell abilities

Answer 13

Prefer mother’s scent; breastfed babies show odor learning; different mouth chemistry than adults

Question 14

Importance of touch in infancy

Answer 14

• Newborns are sensitive to temperature change.
• Evidence of sensitivity to pain - physiological indicators (crying, facial grimace, stress hormones, hard to comfort, etc). Not possible to assess cognitive components of pain.
• Newborns are sensitive to affectionate touch:

Question 15

Benefits of infant massage

Answer 15

Weight gain, improved cognitive/motor development; helps drug-exposed/HIV/abused infants

Question 16

Face preference in fetuses

Answer 16

Third trimester fetuses prefer face-like dot configurations, suggesting innate social orientation

Question 17

Autism and face perception

Answer 17

Infants later diagnosed with autism don’t show typical face preference, potentially missing social cues

Question 18

Difference between Piaget/Vygotsky on play

Answer 18

Piaget: shows cognitive stage Vygotsky: creates learning opportunities through social interaction

Question 19

Functional play

Answer 19

Early play focused on cause-effect (e.g., pushing phone buttons); precedes pretend play

Question 20

Socio-dramatic play

Answer 20

Advanced pretend play relying on others (e.g., role-playing firefighter/nurse); requires social scaffolding

Question 21

Infant definition

Answer 21

Birth to ~1 year; period of rapid physical/cognitive development