SYMBOLIC PLAY, OR PRETEND PLAY, AND LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT ARE INTERRELATED.

BOTH RELY ON REPRESENTATIONAL CAPACITY, WHICH INVOLVES EMPLOYING ONE ELEMENT AS A SIGNIFIER TO REPRESENT ANOTHER ELEMENT.

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3. McCune, L. (2010). Developing symbolic abilities. In B. Wagoner (Ed.), Symbolic transformation: The mind in movement through culture and society (pp. 173–192). London: Routledge Press.

Children aged two and below play with objects in the environment to stimulate their senses and explore.

This is known as sensorimotor play. The earliest instances of symbolic play are usually noted in the second year. A dramatic increase in symbolic acts occurs between 15 and 18 months, with pretending in full swing by approximately 24 months. Two-year-olds spend 5 to 20% of their playtime engaged in pretence activities and can interpret and respond to others’ pretence acts in some circumstances.

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5. Lillard, A., Pinkham, A. M., & Smith, E. (2011). Pretend play and cognitive development. In Goswami, U. (Ed.), The Wiley-Blackwell Handbook of Childhood Cognitive Development (2nd ed.). Blackwell Publishing.

Playing pretend using toy objects (e.g., food, utensils, cars, planes, and buildings) and toy characters (e.g., dolls, animals, and figures) can promote the use of words and narratives to imitate, describe, and cope with actual circumstances and feelings. Such imaginative play is co-related to language development, self-regulation, symbolic thinking, and social-emotional development.

Children’s levels of symbolic play and their early language development appear to be related, with pretending preceding language.

Studies have found possible correlations between symbolic play and the development of a child’s ability to relate and tell stories (narrative ability). More research is needed to determine a causal link.

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7. Lillard, A. S., Lerner, M. D., Hopkins, E. J., Dore, R. A., Smith, E. D., & Palmquist, C. M. (2013). The impact of pretend play on children's development: A review of the evidence. Psychological Bulletin, 139(1), 1–34.

However, this suggests that symbolic play with children, such as play-acting at cooking and having a meal, and enjoying stories or acting out roles may help them practice their language and enhance their ability to use words to relate to others.

By the time children turn two, their engagement with others will extend to peers their same age, not just their caregivers, and toddlers can carry out pretend play with others.

Hence, it is beneficial to encourage interactive play with other children using a variety of toys.

Single-object play appears to be associated with the development of two essential abilities that promote babies' abstract thought: language and complex symbolic play.

Researchers micro-coded 288 symbolic vignettes gathered from 14 babies, aged 6-18 months old, during a yearlong prospective bi-weekly examination. They found that single-object play provides a link between the representational and motor systems.

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9. Orr, E., & Geva, R. (2015). Symbolic play and language development. Infant Behaviour and Development, 38, 147–161.

In contrast, babbling provides a link between the motor and lingual systems.

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9. Orr, E., & Geva, R. (2015). Symbolic play and language development. Infant Behaviour and Development, 38, 147–161.

Thus, both single object play and babbling allow these differing systems to be better integrated,

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3. McCune, L. (2010). Developing symbolic abilities. In B. Wagoner (Ed.), Symbolic transformation: The mind in movement through culture and society (pp. 173–192). London: Routledge Press.

10. Zittoun, T. (2010). How does an object become symbolic? Rooting semiotic artefacts in dynamic shared experiences. In Wagoner, B. (Ed.), Symbolic transformation: The mind in movement through culture and society. London: Routledge.

which is a crucial process for acquiring further symbolic forms.

Language development is closely related to symbolic play, as children use words to represent meaningful people and objects in their lives, for example “ka” for “cat”.

The study also found that mothers' responsiveness is related to the production of symbolic play.

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9. Orr, E., & Geva, R. (2015). Symbolic play and language development. Infant Behaviour and Development, 38, 147–161.

Symbolic play environments also encourage interaction with adults and facilitate a child’s language development. Adults who join in children’s play can help them develop their symbolic play ‘script’ and enhance their language development. An important part of adult scaffolding to help children develop both language and symbolic play is monitoring children’s language to make sure it is used for play, e.g. when a paper plate becomes a “wheel”. In this instance, an adult’s language should change to match the new ways props are used.

Assigning new names to the play props as they are used in new functions helps children master the symbolic nature of words, leading to children’s eventual realisation of the unique relationship between words and the objects they signify. Object substitutions in play (e.g. using a box as a car) are strongly linked to language learning, and their absence is a diagnostic marker of language delay.

Giving children toys and other objects to play with thus helps support symbolic play and other aspects of development.

Another way of scaffolding could be to help the child enter into “role speech” to portray different roles during the pretend session, for example, to speak the way a “doctor” would to a “patient".

These models by adult play partners help children gradually imitate and build up their imagination and symbolic play ability.

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11. Leong, D. J., & Bodrova, E. (2012). Assessing and scaffolding make-believe play. Young Children, 67(1), 28–34.

Symbolic play has also been found to correlate to greater creativity. When children use their bodies to express themselves creatively, it activates the same part of the brain required for symbolic thinking.

Toys that are most likely to facilitate development are those that are most enjoyably and productively used for play together with an engaged caregiver. This is because in such contexts, play with toys is likely to include rich language experiences, reciprocal verbal interactions, and scaffolding.

In general, the best toys are those that match children’s developmental skills and abilities, and further encourage the development of new skills. Developmentally advanced toys can be appropriate too, especially when caregivers scaffold children's learning during play. For example, setting up a storyline for pretending together or providing support for the child’s learning of a new skill.

Some toys can “grow” with children in that they can be used differently as children advance developmentally. For example, an 18-month-old child might try to use blocks functionally by stacking them, whereas a 2-year-old might use the same blocks to engage in sophisticated symbolic play, such as by feeding the doll with a block that represents a bottle.

Limiting screen time promotes imitation and symbolic play. An increase in screen time correlates with a decrease in play, including both active play and play with toys. This is especially significant for young children’s development because screen time directly interferes with both play activities. Recent investigations have revealed that there were fewer adult words, conversational turns, parental responses, and productions of content-specific words during children’s play with electronic toys than during parent-child play with traditional toys or books.

Repeating songs helps children with imitation skills as they learn to imitate words they hear often. Music can also encourage children to carry out symbolic play as they imagine scenarios associated with the lyrics of the song.