Are there any Benefits from Pretend Play?

Are there any Benefits from Pretend Play?

Pretend play can be great fun for preschoolers but new research from the University of Virginia has shown that it may not be as crucial to a child's development as was previously thought.

The research, published online in the most recent issue of Psychological Bulletin, was based on a review of more than 150 studies and looked for the contributions to a child's development to be derived from pretend play. The review found little or no correlation between pretend play and child development.

Pretend play for the purposes of the review was any play a child engages in alone or with friends or adults that involves using their imagination to create a fantasy world or situation such as making toy animals come alive, acting out scenes with figurines and making dolls talk.

According to the lead author of the study Professor Angeline Lillard much of the previously presented evidence on the importance of pretend play in the development of a child was based on flawed methodology. She suggested testers may have been biased by knowledge that they were testing children who had engaged in adult-directed pretend play prior to testing.

"We found no good evidence that pretend play contributes to creativity, intelligence or problem solving. However we did find evidence that it just might be a factor contributing to language, story telling. Social development and self regulation," she said.

Professor Lillard said it was difficult for psychologists to separate whether children who engage in pretend play are actually creative and imaginative, or if the pretend play, often encouraged by parents or teachers, actually promotes development.

"When you look at the research that has been done to test that, it comes up really short. It may be that we've been testing the wrong things; and it may well be that when a future experiment is really well done we may find something that pretend play does for development, but at this point these claims are over heated. This is our conclusion from having really carefully read the studies," she said.

Professor Lillard did say that there are many benefits to be gained from pretend play such as developing the ability to make free choices and pursue one's own interests, negotiation and compromise with peers and adults and physical interaction with real objects.

She also said that pretend play can be an important diagnostic tool for children between 18 months and two years old, with the complete absence of pretend play a potential indication of autism in children at that age.

Editor of Psychological Bulletin and professor of psychology at the University of California at Berkeley, Stephen Hinshaw said the research is important for the early childhood sector.

"The article by Lillard and colleagues is a game-changer -- a paragon of carefully-reasoned evidence that will challenge the play-based domination of the early-childhood field for years to come."

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In your experience in the early childhood sector does pretend play contribute to a child's development?.

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