Piaget and play: translating theory into

practice

S. Gray Garwood, PhD

Associate Professor
Department of Psychology
T HE DEVELOPMENT and functions of
play are becoming increasingly impor-
tant areas of investigation, especially the sig-
Newcomb College nificance of play for cognitive (e.g., Elder &
Tulane University Pederson, 1978; Fein, 1981; Ghiaci & Rich-
New Orleans, Louisiana ardson, 1980; Ungerer, Zelazo, Kearsley, &
O'Leary, 1981) and social development (e.g.,
Bruner, Jolly, & Sylva, 1976; Garvey, 1977;
Guralnick, 1981; Vandenberg, 1981). In addi-
tion, play behavior is being used to understand
atypical development (e.g., Ungerer & Sig-
man, 1981; Whittaker, 1980; Wing, Gould,
Yeates, & Brierly, 1977), and play is coming to
be seen as both an assessment (e.g., Belsky &
Most, 1981) and an intervention strategy (e.g.,
Guralnick, 1981; Pelligrini, 1980).
Play is a difficult concept to define, how-
ever. As Vandenberg (1978) pointed out, part
of this difficulty is due to the multiplicity of
behaviors subsumed under the concept: "The
serious assembly of airplane models by human
adolescents is lumped together with the frolic
of dogs and the repetitive motor play of
infants" (p. 725). Despite such difficulty,
Garvey (1977) isolated five components to
play behavior. Play is

TECSE, 1982, 2(3), 01-13

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TOPICS IN EARLY CHILDHOOD SPECIAL EDUCATION / OCTOBER 1982
• pleasurable and positively valued for its
own sake by the person playing;
• intrinsically, not extrinsically, motivated;
• spontaneous and voluntary;
• characterized by some active involvement
by the player; and
• related in certain systematic ways to what
is not play.
Although there is confusion regarding what
actually constitutes play, most scientists agree
on its function and agree that it includes
developmental sequences.
VIEWS ON PLAY BEHAVIOR
Parten's typology
Based on systematic observations of 2- to
5-year-old nursery school children in play
situations Parten (1932) devised a system for
classifying children's developing sociability in
terms of play behavior they were likely to
engage in at different ages. Parten's system
includes the following five developmental
play levels:
• solitary play, characterized by children
playing alone with their own toys or activ-
ities and making no attempts to interact
with other nearby children;
• onlooker behavior, characterized by inter-
est in the activities of other children but
no active participation in their play
behavior;
• parallel play, characterized by one child's
independent play activities occurring in
tandem with another child's play, thus
promoting close contact but little if any
mutual play;
• associative play, characterized by the
sharing, borrowing, and lending of play
materials among children; and
• cooperative play, characterized by goal-
oriented group activity that is typically
directed by one or two group members.
Parten proposed that children pass through
these successively more social stages of play as
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they grow older and that the earlier forms are
developmentally less sophisticated than later
forms. Consequently, one would expect that
parallel and solitary play, which in Parten's
scheme implies more egocentric and self-
centered behavior, would occur more fre-
quently among younger children and that
associative and cooperative play, which
requires more social interaction ability, would
occur more frequently among older preschool-
ers. Although this is generally so, Parten's
hierarchy has recently been challenged in
terms of the developmental placement and
function of solitary play. For example, Moore,
Evertson, and Brophy (1974) suggested that
solitary play is not necessarily an immature
form of play behavior because it involves
goal-directed activity, large muscle play, and
educational play.
In a longitudinal study of social participa-
tion, using time-sampling observation meth-
ods, Smith (1978) observed 48 preschool chil-
dren over a period of 9 months, beginning
when they were, on the average, 33 months
old. His data indicated that play behavior
develops through three different sequences
rather than in one developmental trend, as
suggested by Parten. Smith found that some
preschoolers start with group play and remain
at that level, though some solitary play
occurred among children in this group. Other
children started with solitary play behavior
and then directly moved to group play behav-
ior, although some children used parallel play
behavior as an intermediate step. Finally,
Smith found that some children either
remained at solitary play activities over the 9
months or varied between solitary and parallel
play behavior. Also, whereas children in the
first-mentioned group were significantly older
than the children in the remaining two groups,
no age differences distinguished the remain-
ing two groups. Smith concluded that solitary
play is not necessarily a less mature form of
social interaction among children. Instead, it

may reflect a coping mechanism used by
children to rehearse particular skills before
trying them out in group situations; thus soli-
tary play may be a more mature form than
parallel play.
Ethology
In ethological theory, play is viewed as an
important survival mechanism. According to
Vandenberg (1978),
Those that must adapt to a more social world
require more play than those who do not. Similarly,
with ontogenetic development, the structure of play
must also change ... if play is to serve the evolving
and changing adaptive needs of the organism.
These changes in the form of play are intimately
meshed with the organism's intentional abilities and
its cognitive and representational abilities (p. 736).
What this means is that as organisms become
more complex and less subject to strictly bio-
logical or reflexive responding, they must
Play becomes more critical with
increasing phylogenetic complexity and
increasing environmental demands.
develop their own coping mechanisms. In chil-
dren, these coping skills follow a sequence:
exploration (tentative interactions with envi-
ronmental objects or events to determine their
nature and safety), play (non-goal-oriented
experimental activity), and application (goal-
oriented behavior). Play becomes more critical
with increasing phylogenetic complexity and
increasing environmental demands. This view
is compatible with Smith's reinterpretation of
the function of solitary play.
It follows that play and exploratory activity
differ, both in function (exploration is an
information-seeking activity) and in organiza-
tion (to obtain useful information behavior
must be organized). Hughes (1978, 1979)
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PIAGET AND PLAY
observed nursery school children during six
exposures to a novel object (a complicated
gadget). The behavior comprising exploration
was more tightly organized than was play
behavior.
Cognitive-developmental perspective
Piaget (1962) wrote extensively about the
contribution of play to intellectual develop-
ment; his views provide the theoretical ration-
ale for the use of play as an intervention
strategy.
Piaget (1962) regarded play as critical to
cognitive development, especially in the
child's early years. He distinguished three
developmental levels of play: sensorimotor,
symbolic, and games with rules. Sensorimotor
play usually consists of repeating various pre-
viously learned behaviors, apparently to pro-
vide pleasure and not to attain a particular
goal. This type of play activity predominates
during the child's first 2 years of life, before
symbolic and communicative abilities devel-
op.
Symbolic play, which parallels preopera-
tional thought, increases as the child acquires
ability to use mental symbols to represent
experience. During this period, pretend or
make-believe play begins (see Fein, 1981, for a
recent review). Symbolic play requires the
child not only to begin to take the role of
another (either animate or inanimate) but also
to recall past experience for present use.
Obviously, both of these are cognitively
based.
In addition, as Sigel and Cocking (1977)
pointed out, "Ordering the play themes and
the sequence of events is not fixed in the
physical world but rather fixed in the heads of
the participants. Thus to engage in play, espe-
cially when it involves others, requires the
child to engage in an array of interactions
which can produce conflict, logical necessity,
and consequently the need for resolution of
these difficulties" (p. 58).
TOPICS IN EARLY CHILDHOOD SPECIAL EDUCATION / OCTOBER 1982
Games with rules, the third level of play,
parallels concrete operational abilities and
requires higher levels of sociability; rule-based
cooperative and competitive activities domi-
nate the school years. (This last stage of play
will not be considered here because it is
beyond the scope of this journal.)
According to Piaget, the development of
intelligence is aided by development of both
imitation and play behavior. Imitation is abil-
ity to reproduce observable behavior or unob-
servable behavior or both. Imitation is linked
to mental ability because it not only requires
making observations of one's own and others'
complex behavior but also requires repre-
senting these observations by either internal
symbolic processes or overt mediational
behavior or both. Piaget believed imitative
skills increase tremendously from birth to
about age 2. Imitative skills aid mental growth
by contributing to the differentiation, coordi-
nation, and generalizing of existing behaviors
and by enabling the child to add new behav-
iors. "Imitation through action, an accommo-
dation to models that are present, gradually
extends to deferred imitation and finally to
interiorized imitation. In this last form it con-
stitutes the origin of mental imagery" (Piaget,
1976, p. 173).
As imitation is accommodatory, play is
assimilatory. That is, in play "the characteris-
tics of the object are not taken into account
except insofar as they are consistent with the
subject's momentary interests. . . . The most
common form of this . . . in the play of the
child is the 'symbolic games' . . . in which
objects at his command are used only to repre-
sent what is imagined'' (Piaget, 1976, p. 173).
Through play young children develop particu-
lar skills and gain knowledge of how responses
can be coordinated for better problem-solving
ability. Play is thus an important factor in the
development of intelligence. As Piaget (1962)
noted, so far as sensorimotor intelligence, imi-
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tation, and play are concerned, "imitation is a
continuation of accommodation, play a contin-
uation of assimilation, and intelligence a har-
monious combination of the two'' (p. 104).
PLAY AND IMITATION DURING THE
SENSORIMOTOR YEARS
During the first few years, cognitive devel-
opment is based primarily in physical action.
Although apparently simple, sensorimotor
development is complex enough to entail six
descriptive substages, which are discussed in
the following sections.
Stage One: reflexive activity (birth to about
1 month)
Throughout their first month, infants'
reflexive behavior becomes organized into
schemes through exercise. Infants assimilate
experience without making the accommoda-
tions necessary for adaptation. They neither
imitate nor play. The repetitious motor prac-
tice at this stage is instead probably the exer-
cise of essential instincts (Piaget, 1962).
Stage Two: primary circular reactions
(about 1-4 months)
During this stage, infants begin to attempt
to adapt to experience. Among the more sig-
nificant adaptations is the coordination and
i n t e g r a t i o n of p r e v i o u s l y i n d e p e n d e n t
schemes, which enable the infant to control
actions in order to look at what is heard, to
suck what is grasped, and eventually to reach
for what is seen. Sporadic imitation occurs
during this state. Once reflexive schemes
develop into differentiated responses, new
gestures become possible. Finger sucking, dif-
ferentiated crying, vocalizing and visual
accommodation all involve imitation as well as
adaptation.
Play behavior develops from these adaptive
reactions. That is, the child may continue to

reproduce efforts to accommodate purely for
practice or pleasure, without any expectation
that the previously learned adaptive outcome
will occur. For example, Piaget noted that his
son, at about 3 months of age, learned to throw
his head back to look at familiar things from a
different perspective but once he had learned
this response and its consequences, he repeat-
edly threw his head back, laughing loudly
each time. Thus, Stage Two play varies slightly
from adaptive assimilation and is mostly motor
practice.
Stage Three: secondary circular reactions
(about 4-8 months)
The accomplishment of eye-hand coordina-
tion during Stage Two contributes to a major
cognitive breakthrough: Infants begin to shift
their attention to effects their responses have
on the external environment. Stage Three is
thus characterized by attempts to consolidate
and coordinate responses to produce interest-
ing environmental effects. Schemes so pro-
duced represent acquired patterns of respond-
ing; they are not yet used to intentionally
adapt to new experiences.
During this stage, an infant can only imitate
familiar and observable gestures. Differences
in the quality of play are tied now to the
child's growing reliance on the use of objects.
Once the infant has accommodated to an
object and exploratory behavior ceases, the
child's behavior with that object becomes
gamelike. For example, at 3 months of age,
Piaget's daughter discovered she could make
objects hanging from the top of her crib swing.
"Subsequently . . . [between 4 and 9 months]
. . . she never indulged in this activity . . .
without a show of great joy and power. Assimi-
lation was no longer accompanied by accom-
modation and therefore was no longer an
effort at comprehension" (1962, p. 82). Thus,
play continues to be motor practice but begins
to involve external objects.
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PIAGET AND PLAY
Stage Four: coordination of secondary
schemes (about 8-12 months)
This stage marks the emergence of inten-
tional goal-directed behavior. Infants begin to
anticipate external events that occur indepen-
dently of their own behavior and also adapt
more effectively to new and unfamiliar expe-
riences. Infants are increasingly able to recom-
bine schemes developed during Stage Three
into schemes that are more useful for attaining
goals, solving problems, and adapting to new
experiences; these schemes no longer serve
only to reproduce interesting or familiar
events.
The infant begins to use objects as tools to
attain goals and is better able to ignore
acquired associations of objects with responses;
the infant is more interested in exploring novel
objects. During Stage Three novelty captured
the infant's curiosity only briefly, and intellec-
tual interest was centered on the object pri-
marily because of its function. During Stage
Four, "the unfamiliar obviously represents to
the child an external reality, to which he must
adapt himself.... [T]he child .. . gives more
the impression of making an experiment than
of generalizing his behavior patterns: He tries
to Understand' " (Piaget, 1962, p. 259).
Imitation of own body movements that are
not easily observed by the child (i.e., invisible
movements) and of new models begins to
occur with coordination of schemes, for this
allows coordination of the visual and tactile-
kinesthetic schemes needed for such imitation.
However, such imitation is imprecise. Coordi-
nation of schemes also makes possible a change
in the nature of play. First, the behavior
learned through the process of combining
known schemes to solve a new problem can be
exercised as play practice. Second, and per-
haps of more interest, the child is now capable
of combining schemes for playful (ludic) pur-
poses, that is, for a purpose other than problem
solving.
TOPICS IN EARLY CHILDHOOD SPECIAL EDUCATION / OCTOBER 1982
Furthermore, these combinations begin to
take on the appearance of a ritual. Piaget
noted that his daughter, while holding a
fringed pillow, noticed the fringe and began to
suck it. "This action, which reminded her of
what she did everyday before going to sleep,
caused her to lie down on her side, in the
position for sleep, holding a corner of the
fringe and sucking her thumb" (1962, p. 93).
This behavior, which lasted only a few sec-
onds, was interpreted by Piaget to be a precur-
sor to symbolic play. "All that is needed for the
ludic ritual to become a symbol is that the
child, instead of merely following the cycle of
his habitual movements, should be aware of
the make-believe, i.e., that he should 'pretend'
to sleep" (1962, pp. 93-94).
Stage Five: tertiary circular reactions (about
12-18 months)
Tertiary circular reactions occur when
familiar responses applied to new objects pro-
duce unexpected effects. The resulting con-
flict stimulates the toddler to explore this new
object. The child repeatedly touches the
object, varying the form of response each time.
Children discover new means by active explo-
ration. Although some of the properties may
be difficult for the child to assimilate to known
schemes, by systematically manipulating re-
sponses, he or she begins to discover new
means for adapting to novel objects. These
new means can then be applied to other new
experiences.
Imitation of invisible movements and of
new models becomes more systematic, ena-
bling the child to refine imitative activity
through organized and controlled trial and
error. Play takes on a frivolous and more
diverse quality when, through experimenta-
tion, the child creates interesting combinations
that then almost instantly become ritualized
play. For example, when Piaget's daughter
was about 14 months old "she amused herself
by making an orange skin . . . sway from side
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This increased ritualization of schemes
implies that the child is making
additional progress toward symbolic
play: Because these frivolous rituals
contain borrowed elements, they reflect
abstractions of schemes from their
original context
to side. But as she had looked under the skin
just before putting it in motion, she did it again
. . . at least twenty times; she took the peel,
turned it over, put it down again, made it sway
and then this began all over again" (1962, p.
95). This increased ritualization of schemes
implies that the child is making additional
progress toward symbolic play: Because these
frivolous rituals contain borrowed elements,
they reflect abstractions of schemes from their
original context.
Stage Six: invention of new means through
mental combinations (about 18-24 months)
In Stage Six a child's perspective changes
dramatically. Children now begin to represent
experiences symbolically. Consider the follow-
ing interaction between Piaget and his daugh-
ter, Lucienne. Piaget hid a watch chain in an
empty matchbox. Because the matchbox open-
ing was only 3 mm wide, Lucienne was unable
to use a familiar response scheme, for example,
putting her finger inside. Her response,
instead, was quite sophisticated. Following an
initial attempt to poke her finger into the
opening,
a pause follows during which Lucienne manifests a
very curious reaction. . . . She looks at the slit with
great attention; then several times in succession, she
opens and shuts her mouth, at first slightly, then
wider and wider!. . . Apparently Lucienne under-
stands the existence of a cavity subjacent to the slit
and wishes to enlarge that cavity. . . . [D]ue to
inability to think out the situation in words or clear
visual images she uses a simple motor indicator as

"signifier" or symbol. . . . [T]he motor reaction
which presents itself for filling this role is none
other than imitation. . . . This scheme of imitation,
with which she is familiar, constitutes for her the
means of thinking out the situation. . . . Soon after
this phase of plastic reflection, Lucienne unhesitat-
ingly puts her fingers in the slit, and, instead, of
trying as before to reach the chain, she pulls so as to
enlarge the opening. She succeeds and grasps the
chain. (Piaget, 1962, pp. 337-338)
Although Lucienne might have been able to
solve this problem earlier by trial and error
(Stage Five), her reaction in this situation
clearly indicated an advance to Stage Six; she
reduced overt manipulation before she discov-
ered an appropriate response. Instead of physi-
cally manipulating the box, she manipulated
her representation of it and identified an
appropriate response before using that
response.
Just as problem solving is characterized in
Stage Six by internalized experimentation and
coordination before external motor activity, so
too is imitation. That is, the accommodatory
aspect of adaptation is internalized, enabling
the child to imitate new models immediately.
More importantly, perhaps, the child is now
also capable of deferring imitation to a time
when the model is not present. "The child
becomes capable of imitating internally a
series of models in the form of images or
suggestions of actions. Imitation thus begins to
reach the level of representation" (Piaget,
1962, p. 62).
In Stages One-Five, play moves from
strictly motor practice to ludic ritualization.
This transformation is a necessary precursor to
symbolic play. In Stage Six, this process is
completed as ludic symbols become disasso-
ciated from ludic ritualizations to form the
symbolic schemes that are necessary for sym-
bolic play. When Piaget's daughter was 19
months old, she first pretended to drink from a
box. Following this she held the box up to the
mouths of others present. According to Piaget,
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PIAGET AND PLAY
his daughter's playful symbolic representation
of a drinking utensil "had been prepared for
during the preceding month or two by a
progressive ritualization, the principal stages
of which consisted in playing at drinking out
of empty glasses and then repeating the action
making noises with lips and throat" (1962, p.
97).
Thus, for the first time the child pretends
during play. The child uses familiar schemes
but without the objects to which they are
typically applied. The schemes are applied to
new objects, not for any adaptive purpose but
only to mimic the original relationships to
produce pleasure. (See Fein, 1981, for a thor-
ough review of research dealing with pretend
play.)
PLAY DURING EARLY CHILDHOOD:
SYMBOLIC PLAY
The symbolic schemes which make their
appearance in Stage Six of the sensorimotor
period are transitional; they are self-oriented,
repeating only the child's own actions. How-
ever, beginning at about age 2, these symbolic
schemes give way to symbolic games, as the
character of play becomes less self-oriented.
This new type of symbolic play helps the child
assimilate reality to the ego while freeing the
ego from the need to accommodate and adapt
too early to a reality not yet well understood.
Piaget *s categories
Piaget divided symbolic games into several
levels, ranging over the preoperational period
of cognitive development. Stage I and Stage II
symbolic games (1) imply representation of an
absent object because the child is comparing a
given and an imagined object; (2) imply make-
believe or pretense because the comparison is
distorting assimilation (e.g., a box is a glass); (3)
only subordinate the sensorimotor practice ele-
ment, which in reality may continue as a part
of play throughout life; and (4) deviate more
 TOPICS IN EARLY CHILDHOOD SPECIAL EDUCATION / OCTOBER 1982

Table 1. Outline of Piaget s levels of stage I preoperational symbolic play behavior

Level 1

A. Projecting symbolic schemes onto new objects:
The child, using imitation and now-familiar
self-oriented schemes, begins to apply these to
other objects or people. Not only is object play
increasing in importance, but the symbol has
now become completely disassociated from
sensorimotor practice and is used as an inde-
pendent representation.
B. Projecting imitation schemes onto new objects:
The child borrows schemes from models, us-
ing imitation, and applies them to others. Such
schemes do not form part of the child's own
activity in that he or she is drawing from al-
ready learned self-oriented symbolic schemes.

Level 2

A. Simple identification of one object with anoth- B. Games of imitation:

er: T h e child pretends to be another and carries
The child, seeing the mother's hair, may say out the other's activity, e.g., pretending to be
fur (i.e., cat) or, seeing a shell, may say cup. mother, the doctor, the cleaning person, etc.

Level 3

A. Symbolic combinations: B. Compensatory combinations:

Now children become better able to construct The child is still using make-believe to
whole scenes and not just isolated fragments assimilate reality, but the focus is more on
and this enables them to begin to extend their correcting reality, doing something through
ability to reproduce reality. make-believe that one cannot do in reality
or neutralizing something fearful that
exists in reality (play as catharsis).
C. Liquidating combinations:
In 3B, a child w ho is faced with a difficult sit-
uation can either compensate for it or accept
it. In 3C, the child tries to relive and change
the outcome symbolically to disassociate it
from its unpleasant context

Note: The letters A, B, and C represent different aspects of symbolic play behavior at each of the three levels of play.

and more from mere practice as they acquired
additional functions (e.g. compensation, ful-
fillment of wishes, and liquidation of con-
flicts).
During Stage I, covering ages 2 to 3 or 4,
symbolic games may be divided into several
levels, which are briefly outlined in Table 1.
During Stage II, covering ages 3 or 4 to
about 7, symbolic games begin to lose some of
their importance. They do not necessarily
become less numerous or less intense; rather,
the symbol more closely approximates reality
and thus loses some of its ludic aspects. (Re-
member, too, that thought is becoming more
logical and orderly.) In Stage II, symbolic
games are marked by (1) the increasing order-
liness of ludic constructions; (2) the increasing
desire for accuracy and exactness in the child's
imitation of reality; and (3) the appearance of
collective symbolism, which involves the dif-
ferentiation and adjustment of roles. Hence
social interactions become more important, a
finding borne out by Parten's (1932) descrip-
tion of social play among preschool children.
As Piaget put it, "the ludic symbol is evolving
towards a straightforward copy of reality, only

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the general themes remaining symbolic, which
the detail of the scenes and of the constructions
tends toward exact accommodation and fre-
quently towards properly intelligent adapta-
tion" (1962, p. 137).
Smilansky's categories
Smilansky (1968) elaborated on Piaget's
classification scheme, suggesting four levels of
play that are developmentally related to
increases in prerequisite cognitive skills:
• functional play, characterized by simple,
repetitive muscle movements, with or
without objects;
• constructive play, characterized by ma-
nipulation of objects in making play
things, for example, using blocks to build a
tower;
• dramatic play, which requires the devel-
opment of imaginary situations to satisfy
the child's wishes or needs; and
• games with rules, characterized by the
acceptance of prearranged rules and the
adjustment of behavior to these rules.
Smilansky's functional play is similar to
Piaget's sensorimotor stage; constructive and
dramatic are typically preoperational play
forms, and play categorized as games with
rules is associated with concrete abilities.
Obviously, more advanced cognitij^ play
requires more social interaction.
Rubin and Maioni (1975) provide support
for Smilansky's developmental scheme. They
found that preschoolers engaged in signifi-
cantly more functional and constructive than
dramatic or games play. They also reported
that the use of dramatic play was positively
correlated with spatial and classification abili-
ties but that functional play and these same
abilities were negatively correlated, evidence
of the relationship between play and cognitive
growth. In play, especially dramatic play, chil-
dren can act out conflictual situations so that
they come out the winner and so that sense of
mastery or competence is not totally dimin-
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PIAGET AND PLAY
ln play, especially dramatic play,
children can act out conflictual
situations so that they come out the
winners and so that sense of mastery or
competence is not totally diminished or
altered by conflictual experiences.
ished or altered by conflictual experiences.
Viewing play as a way of working out emo-
tional problems has generated a popular form
of child psychotherapy called play therapy
(Axline, 1947).
ASSESSMENT APPROACHES
Several researchers have developed scales to
assess the developmental progression of play.
Nicolich (1977), for example, devised a five-
level ordinal scale covering Piaget's sensorimo-
tor and symbolic games play stages. These five
levels describe the transition from the child's
fusion of meaning and action to the point at
which action is internally directed. The stages
are (1) presymbolic games (meaningful use of
actions apart from their habitual objectives),
(2) autosymbolic games (playful use of famil-
iar schemes), (3) decentered games (reliance
on more abstract schemes), (4) combinatorial
symbolic games (combination of schemes into
sequences), and (5) internally directed sym-
bolic games (mental generation of games
before action occurs).
McCune-Nicolich (1981) provides support
for this Piagetian sequence of play develop-
ment, drawing from numerous studies with
over 500 subjects. Hill and McCune-Nicolich
(1981) demonstrated that this scale also ade-
quately assesses the development of play in
Down's syndrome children. Data from this
study indicated four clearly different play
behavior levels among 30 Down's syndrome
infants, aged 20 to 53 months. The second and
TOPICS IN EARLY CHILDHOOD SPECIAL EDUCATION / OCTOBER 1982
third levels were collapsed into one, but the
remaining levels maintained their distinctive-
ness, indicating that this scale can be used with
atypically as well as normally developing chil-
dren.
Lowe (1975) devised a scale based on
Piaget's views regarding the transition of play
from self-oriented action to other-directed
action. Whittaker (1980) used this scale with
hospitalized profoundly retarded children, all
with a social age below 3*/2 years and with
either no speech or the ability to use no more
than 15 single words; no child in this group
could produce two-word utterances. Whit-
taker found the same developmental pro-
gression in both the handicapped children and
the normal young children, suggesting that
play behavior follows a developmental
sequence that is relatively independent of
experience.
Belsky and Most (1981) developed a Pia-
getian-based behavioral observation strategy
that includes a developmental sequence of 12
exploration/play behaviors: mouthing, simple
manipulation, functional, relational, function-
al-relational, enactive naming, pretend self,
pretend external, substitution, sequence pre-
tend, sequence pretend substitution, and dou-
ble substitution. Results from two investiga-
tions using this 12-step developmental
sequence suggest that the sequence accurately
assesses play development in infants and
young children. Furthermore, because the
behavior observed is nonverbal and self-gener-
ated, this strategy may lend itself to the assess-
ment of children who have difficulty learning
language (Beizer, Hrncir, Naifeh, Most, &
Belsky, 1981).
Rubin created a play scale by combining
Parten's social play categories with Smilan-
sky's cognitive play categories. Each of Part-
en's categories is subdivided into Smilansky's
three sequential categories (Rubin, Maioni, &
Hornung, 1976). This scale appears to be use-
ful in assessing play in young children. Enslein
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and Fein (1981) recently validated the tempo-
ral and cross-situational characteristics of this
scale and found it a "useful tool for examining
various aspects of children's spontaneous social
play behavior in specific preschool settings"
(p. 761).
The work of Rubin and his colleagues with
the Parten-Smilansky scale also suggests that
some of the differences in types of play behav-
ior observed among similarly aged children
may be traced to social class differences. These
researchers, in attempting to compare Parten's
and Smilansky's play categories in a group of
40 white middle- and lower-class children,
with an average age of 3.8 years, found that
middle-class children used more constructive
(Smilansky) and more associative and coopera-
tive (Parten) play, and lower-class children
used more functional (Smilansky) and more
parallel (Parten) play. The play of the middle-
class children was more cognitively and
socially advanced (according to these two clas-
sification systems) than was the play of the
lower-class children. Since play and sociability
are integrally related and play is centered
around toys and a variety of meaningful peer
experiences, it is likely that such social class
differences can be traced to experiential dif-
ferences (Rubin et al., 1976).
SOMEftONSIDERATIONS FOR
INTERVENTION
Knowledge of the behavioral characteristics
of play and of its developmental progression
can help us understand and enhance delayed
or deviant behaviors in young handicapped
children. Not only would such knowledge pro-
mote a better understanding of behavior in
general, but it would allow more systematic
and accurate observation of, and attempts to
intervene in, the developmental progress of
these children.
Knowledge about play behavior can be
incorporated into an intervention program in
order to help the child grow cognitively,
 PIAGET AND PLAY

Area: Cognition (Play)

Goal: Child will perform two related actions in sequence using objects in play.

Rationale: In play, child now begins to integrate separate acts into simple sequences. Child must
mentally relate two different actions that, in many instances, may reflect a degree of pre-
planning. Imitation of behaviors seen in the environment (such as the mother cooking and
serving food) and memory skills are being strengthened.

Materials: Toy cooking utensils, eating and Cautions:

drinking implements, dolls, doll
furniture, trucks, blocks.

Position: Any position allowing child to play freely.

TEACHING PROCEDURES
Step 1: Observe child in free play. The two actions that will be combined into an ordered sequence must
be present as single acts in child's free-play repertoire.
Step 2: Parallel play (play alongside, not with child) for several minutes performing two familiar related
actions in sequence with two or more groups of objects. Verbalize what you are doing, e.g., "I'm
going to cook some food" (stirring in pot) "and put it on the plate" (spooning pretend food from
pot onto plate). Allow child to imitate if child chooses.
Step 3: Move out of play area and observe child for 3 minutes. Score + if child performs any two related
actions in sequence. Score 0 if child does not perform two related actions in sequence. Stop
scoring at end of 3-minute period or when child performs three sequences of two related
actions.
Step 4: If, after several sessions, child has not performed two related actions in sequence with parallel
play, caregiver may engage child directly in the play sequences, helping child follow both steps.
Score (0) for these sessions. Return to parallel play and observe.

TEACHING NOTES
Other two-action examples: "pouring" from toy pitcher to cup and "drinking" from cup; loading blocks into
dump truck and pushing truck around; placing doll in bed and covering with blanket; feeding doll and wiping
doll's face.

EVALUATION CRITERION
Child will perform three sequences of two related actions within a short play period for 4 consecutive days.

Figure 1. Teaching play. The author thanks Patsy Poche and Marcia Lobman of LSU Medical School, Allied
Health Services, for permission to use this play curriculum item.

socially, and perhaps linguistically. A careful
review of the types and sequences of play
behavior outlined earlier and in Table 1 should
suggest a variety of approaches. Figure 1
contains but one of many possible theoretically
based curriculum items that can augment play
activity in young handicapped children. This
particular item is derived from Piaget's theory
and reflects play behavior likely to be
observed either during Stage Six of sensorimo-
tor development or during the first level of
preoperational symbolic games. This item also

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TOPICS IN EARLY CHILDHOOD SPECIAL EDUCATION / OCTOBER 1982
would characterize play behavior typical of
Nicolich's (1977) fourth level, combinatorial
symbolic games. Behavior described in this
scale, in the Parten-Smilansky scale, in Belsky
and Most's observation strategy and, of course,
in Piaget's theory, provide numerous examples
of play behavior that can be used in interven-
tion curriculum items.
Knowledge of play characteristics can also
affect the way behavioral objectives are
selected and adjusted for handicapped chil-
dren. For example, intervention programs for
young children frequently provide goals for
the child. Once he or she has mastered an
objective, it is checked off and replaced by a
new objective. Behavioral gains would be
enhanced if, instead of ceasing to work on the
now mastered behavior, the child was allowed
time and space to practice the newly mastered
motor or symbolic schemes in different con-
texts. This would facilitate generalization and
consolidation. Both Dunst (1981) and Case
(1978) have suggested strategies for interve-
nors to use to vary environmental contexts and
intervention strategies and to allow such gen-
eralization and consolidation to occur.
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