Pretending through 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 correlated to language development, self-regulation, symbolic thinking, and social-emotional development.

Single-object play appears to be associated with developing two essential abilities for babies that promote their abstract thought: language and complex symbolic play.

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

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

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

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4. 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.

5. Zittoun, T. (2010). How does an object become symbolic? Rooting semiotic artefacts in dynamic shared experiences. In B. Wagoner (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”.

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

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

Read more at CD-PLY-C03.