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SOCIO-DRAMATIC PLAY AND LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT
IN PRESCHOOL DISADVANTAGED CHILDREN*
SOPHIE L. LOVINGER
Central Michigan University
In the last decade play has aroused the interest of psychologists who are not
involved intimately with play as an integral part of the psychoanalytic thinking.
Theories of play and the confusions about the function of play are related to the
lumping of play as seen in the preschool child with the games engaged in by the
older child (Herron
&
Sutton-Smith,
1971).
Recent research (Klinger,
1971
;
Singer,
1973)
on play indicates that there is a difTerence between the games played by the
older child and the fantasy and make-believe engaged in by the preschool child.
Klinger
(1971)
has suggested that the make-believe engaged in by the preschooler
is the precursor
of
the fantasy seen in the adolescent. Klinger suggested that
make-believe and fantasy develop along parallel lines during childhood. As the
child matures, make-believe gradually drops out and is replaced by fantasy as
the predominant mode. The make-believe of the young child,
as
well as the fantasy
of
the adolescent, reflects the current concerns of the person’s failures with peers,
emotional hurts, identification, etc.
It
is fantasy and play, by virtue of their prob-
lem-solving potential, that offer alternative modes of problem solving.
Studies
of
animal play by Laizas
(1966)
and Schenkel
(1966)
and doll play by
Lewin and Wardell
(1962)
suggest that play is based on prelearned, goal-directed
behavior. The play aspect, which leads to problem solving, is determined by the
interruption
of
the behavior sequence before a logical completion of the behavior
has occurred. In play the fragmentation of the prelearned behaviors and a reordering
of
these fragments lead to novelty and problem solving.
The play of disadvantaged children reflects the fragmentation inherent in play.
However, these children do not possess the flexibility necessary to alter and rese-
quence the behavioral fragments that might lead to alternative modes of functioning
or problem solving. According to Smilansky
(1968)
:
“They tend either to stick to one repetitious activity without elaborating
it
or
jump from activity to another disconnected one
.
.
.
It
seems that the lack
of flexibility characteristic of these children, their inability to develop a theme,
a
thought,
or
game, points to some discontinuity in their chain of concepts
. .
.
Every bit
of
experience remains separate, unrelated, and this prevents the
child from molding existing concepts into new ones
.
.
.
and from seeing things
from different points of view
.
. .
[pp.
2-31.’’
This study, which was designed to teach a group of disadvantaged children
how to use fantasy play, makes the distinction between games, role taking, real
athletics, etc.,
vs.
pretending to be
an
astronaut, pretending to be
a
mother taking
care of her baby, pretending to eat an ice cream cone. The distinction between role
playing and making believe that one is a particular person involves the amount
of
flexibility that one has in the make-believe aspect
of
a
particular role, the ability
to alter the model to
fit
one’s need at any point in the play, whereas
a
role usually
is enacted largely according to
a
predetermined script.
*Thi
research
was
supported in part by a grant from the University Research and Creative
Endeavors Committee.