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Developmental Benefits of Play

Play aids in physical development
    • Gross motor skills (like running and whole-body movements)
    • Fine motor skills (like hand-eye coordination)
    • Play can also be important in movement-based learning, which incorporates the idea of learning by doing

Play aids in social development
    • We learn play signals - to know when others are playing around
    • Play teaches us important interactive skills like turn-taking
    • How we play with others can affect identity development
    • Play teaches us about cooperation and competition (Jerome Bruner)
    • Play teaches us about sex roles (do boys get teased for playing with dolls?) and cultural norms (Jerome Bruner)
    • The social aspects of play have been categorized by Mildred Parten (1932)
       into:
        - Uninvolved Play (totally detached)
        - Onlooker Play (watching others, but not interacting)
        - Solitary Play (playing alone)
        - Parallel Play (playing alone, but alongside another)
        - Cooperative Play (playing together with rules and a plan)

Play aids in cognitive development
    • We often learn to assimilate (come to understand) new objects or rules when playing (Jean Piaget)
    • Play can help us learn to think abstractly (think about objects that may not be right in front of us).  This is especially true in imaginary/pretend play (Lev Vygotsky)
    • Play helps us learn language and problem solving (playing with words, numbers, rhyming, puzzles, etc.) and promotes creative thinking (Jerome Bruner)



References
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