Disadvantaged preschool children directed in the role-enactment of imaginary stories were found to be superior to control children (who did not engage in role playing) on several measures of social and cognitive development. Fantasy play training resulted in a higher incidence of spontaneous sociodramatic play, higher scores on an interpersonal perception test, and better performance on tasks measuring story sequential memory and story verbalization skills. However, this training did not improve performance on measures of intelligence. The authors suggest that fantasy play may be a promising intervention technique. (ST)