Brigette Oliver Ryalls

The Effects of Stereotyped Toys and Gender on Play Assessment in Children Aged 18-47 Months

The goals of the present study were to identify the impact particular stereotyped toys have on young childrens complexity of play; to identify how these behaviours may influence childrens cognitive development using play assessment; and to ascertain the toys that would be most appropriate for use in play assessment sessions. A total of 30 children who ranged in age from 18-47 months were observed playing for 30 minutes in a playroom. Analyses revealed that higher levels of play complexity were only manifested when children played with female stereotyped toys. The implications for practitioners of this and other findings are discussed.

A Systematic, Reliable Approach to Play Assessment in Preschoolers:

Play assessment is gaining attention as a measure of the developing skills of young children. The procedures and methods of coding child behaviours vary considerably across researchers and practitioners. Because of this, definitive statements about the use of play assessment cannot be made without further research. The present study is an attempt to report a set of standardized procedures for play assessment along with an empirically based coding scheme (PIECES). The reliability of this system of play assessment is also investigated. High inter-observer reliability was found along with moderate test-retest correlations for both the typically developing (r = 0.48) and exceptional (r = 0.58) children. Thus, this version of play assessment holds promise as an observation system for intervention and progress monitoring in early childhood. The authors stress that more research is needed in this area before play assessment can either be used in early childhood or discounted as an inappropriate tool.

The Use of Play Assessment to Evaluate the Cognitive Skills of Two-and Three-Year-Old Children

Play assessment is increasing in popularity despite the lack of empirical support. The purpose of this study was to explore the use of play assessment with young children and determine its efficacy in determining cognitive levels of development. Eight 2-year-olds and eight 3/2-year-olds were observed playing in an unstructured format. Results indicated that Exploratory Play becomes more complex with age and is displayed more than Pretend Play in an unstructured play session. Childrens play primarily consisted of Exploratory Play, Pretend Play and Problem Solving and Planning Skills. Several of the Supple mental Subdomains measured by play assessment were not observed to occur in the spontaneous play format. A tendency for increasing complexity of play across time in session was also found.

Sitting and Looking: A Comparison of Stability and Visual Exploration in Infants with Typical Development and Infants with Motor Delay

ABSTRACT This longitudinal study focused on the interaction of developing sitting postural control with look time, which served as a measure for cognitive processing. Twenty-eight typically developing infants and 16 infants with motor delays were evaluated using center-of-pressure measures to assess stability of sitting postural control and videography to assess look time at objects, at three progressive stages of sitting development. Results indicated that look time decreased significantly (p < .001) in conjunction with a significant increase in postural stability (p < .001) in both groups as sitting progressed to independence. Infants with motor delays showed significantly longer looks when compared to typical infants (p = .02) at the middle stage of sitting. We conclude that developmental changes in look time are related to changes in sitting postural control, and infants with motor delay may have greater difficulty looking during emerging postural control skills in sitting. Early interventionists may use look time as an indicator of sitting effort and cognitive processing during assessment and program planning.

A Play and Language Intervention for Two-Year-Old Children: Implications for Improving Play Skills and Language

The purpose of this study was to develop an intervention for 2-year-old children to enhance play and language skills. The intervention was implemented over a 4-week period and included components of reading, modeling, and positive reinforcement of language and play. Specifically, children were read a story and played with a matching toy set. Participants included 10 children, all age 2, who attended a child care center. Five participants received the play intervention, and five were used as comparison. All children were assessed using the Play in Early Childhood Evaluation System (PIECES), the Preschool Language Scale (PLS), and a Vocabulary Assessment. The results of this study showed that children who received the intervention increased pretend play more than the comparison group and also increased comprehension and expressive communication skills more than the comparison group. Implications for early childhood educators and parents are discussed.

Adults' acquisition of novel dimension words: creating a semantic congruity effect.

Abstract The semantic congruity effect is exhibited when adults are asked to compare pairs of items from a series, and their response is faster when the direction of the comparison coincides with the location of the stimuli in the series. For example, people are faster at picking the bigger of 2 big items than the littler of 2 big items. In the 4 experiments presented, adults were taught new dimensional adjectives (mal/ler and borg/er). Characteristics of the learning situation, such as the nature of the stimulus series and the relative frequency of labeling, were varied. Results revealed that the participants who learned the relative meaning of the artificial dimensional adjectives also formed categories and developed a semantic congruity effect regardless of the characteristics of training. These findings have important implications for our understanding of adult acquisition of novel relational words, the relationship between learning such words and categorization, and the explanations of the semantic congruity effect.

TĖVŲ MOKYMO PROGRAMOS EFEKTYVUMAS UGDANT VAIKŲ ŽAIDIMO GEBĖJIMUS

Background. Young children learn about their world through play but some lack developmentally appropriate play skills and their learning may be compromised. Purpose. The purpose of this study was to explore the effectiveness of parents teaching play skills to their children. Methods and Results. Parents of preschoolers were taught ways to enhance their children’s pretend play and then engage in parent-child play daily for six weeks. Children in the parent training group (n=5) showed more growth in their play than the children in a comparison group (n=4). Every child in the parent training group showed an increase in pretend play, whereas in the comparison group, one child increased, two remained about the same, and one decreased. Conclusions. Implications for the delivery of early childhood services are discussed regarding the effective use of parents as implementers of play interventions. keywords: early childhood, play, parent training. THE EFFECT oF A PArENT TrAININg ProgrAM oN CHIldrEN’S PlAY In early childhood, early identification and subsequent intervention allows for the building of essential skills that can prevent further problems. Recognizing the important role that parents, defined as the primary caregivers of the child, fulfill in the lives of their children, as well as the shift in educational law, early childhood intervention strategies should be family-centered (Individuals with Disabilities Education 1 Address for correspondence: Psychology Department, ASH 347R, University of Nebraska at Omaha, Omaha, NE 68182-0274; phone: 402-554-3563; e-mail: lkelly-vance@ unomaha.edu. Jessica Dempsey, Lisa Kelly-Vance, Brigette Ryalls 118 Improvement Act, 2004; Wehman, 1998). As the emphasis of prevention and early intervention grows, it is important to consider how to best enhance children’s development of skills in a way that supports the active involvement of the family. Engagement in play is a central activity of early childhood and current empirical evidence supports the use of play-based assessment and intervention to identify and improve skills (Fewell & Rich, 1987; Kelly-Vance, Needelman, Troia, & Ryalls, 1999; Kelly-Vance & Ryalls, 2005; Kelly-Vance, Ryalls, & Glover, 2002; Linder, 1993; Stagnitti & Unsworth, 2004). Play interventions are family-centered, but research is limited in the involvement of parents in enhancing play (Kelly-Vance & Ryalls, 2008). This study investigated the effect of training parents on specific play teaching strategies and their children’s subsequent play.