Pretend play provides enriched environments for multiple cognitive and social purposes. The quality of children's pretend play depends on the process, including children's back and forth proposals and responses about the play frames. Proposing and responding to play ideas with metacommunication use, leadership-followership interactions are…

The purpose of this study was to determine what types of play ensure stable progress in executive functions in preschoolers. Experimental design included six study groups according to the type of play: role play (Free Play group, Adult-Directed Play group, Child-Directed Play group), play with rules, digital play, and control group. All groups…

Recent proliferation of participatory performance forms has prompted debate on the agency of participants. Consideration of agential potential must go beyond the enactment of the work, however, to assess how participatory experiences can be self-documented and how such records may inform artistic pedagogy. Through discussion of a creative learning…

The present study examines the effectiveness of play therapy (based on the cognitive-behavioural approach) and puppet play therapy in expressive\ receptive language disorders of the studied population. Here, we imported 45 female bilingual preschool children to our research. Their expressive\ receptive language disorders have been approved…

Our theoretical framework is based on Vygotsky's Zone of Proximal Development focusing on adults' involvement in children's play and we argue that teachers' involvement is crucial in supporting children's play skills. Particularly, this study examines early childhood teachers' (ECTs) sociodramatic and imaginative play skills and their development…

Studies have found a relationship between pretend play and self-regulation both during and outside pretend play; however, very few have investigated these three variables simultaneously. Therefore, this study examined the relationship between the frequency of role-play (a type of pretend play), self-regulatory behaviour during role-play, and…

Role-play is a natural and dominant form of early childhood activity. While playing, a child masters new forms of behavior, learns to interact with others, and develops imagination and self-regulation skills. The existing methods of play assessment are based on different theoretical approaches that variously define both the criteria for play and…

Play is essential to the healthy growth and development of children. As children play, they explore new roles, try out new ideas, and bond with each other. Play increases language, cognitive, and social skills. How can the power of play be harnessed and shaped for educational purposes? How can teachers infuse play into the classroom to improve…

The author explored the literacy practices in tabletop gaming communities. Focusing on the role of spatiality and materiality in nondigital contexts, this study broadens how literacies research engages with sociocultural analysis of primarily analog settings. Building on experiences in playing the role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons, the…

Government guidelines are demanding greater educational outcomes and intentional teaching in Australian preschools. The purpose of this paper is to present the results of a study of how children incorporate concepts into child-initiated play. A cohort of 18 children (aged 3.0-5.8, mean age of 4.8) were digitally observed over seven weeks…

Pretend play in early years is considered key to the development of both children's and pre-service teachers' skills. Teachers' involvement in pretend play might be an effective tool for supporting children's play skills and self-confidence, communication, cooperation and decision-making. Drawing on qualitative interviews with pre-service and…

This paper first reviews the roles, concepts and practices within SBBD. The paper continues with two single case studies and a survey on the three main phases used in the Netherlands to aid educational institutes in developing a play-based curriculum. In the first case educational professionals (EPs) recognise that the play-based approach helped…

This study developed an online role-playing history education game with real-person NPCs (Non-Player Characters). The game features real people playing NPC characters, and provides a multi-dimensional scaffolding mechanism with realistic story and historical scenes, allowing learners to engage in strategic planning and problem solving during a…

Purpose: The following article examines the playful composing practices of two youth who built on their backgrounds as fan fiction writers, role-players, visual artists and gamers to co-author a multimodal novel across mediated spaces for composing throughout their high school careers. Design/methodology/approach: The study draws on…

In this study we aimed to compare the contribution of each play type to the development of different EFs components: shifting, working memory (visuospatial and auditory) and inhibition (two aspects of cognitive inhibition and physical inhibition). Following a preliminary examination of EFs was the intervention, which consisted of 14 play sessions…