Importance Of Sociodramatic And Fantastical Play

Importance of Sociodramatic and Fantastical Play for Children’s Development An important part of a child’s development is play. It is important for children to participate in play because it provides children with the ability to improve their cognitive functions, language, and self-regulation. Vygotsky was one of many theorists that believed sociodramatic play is necessary for for cognitive, social, and emotional development for children (Elias and Berk, 2002). Sociodramatic play is also important for building the language competence of children, and language is important for the development of self-regulation. Fantastical play is important for the development of cognitive functions. Self-regulation increases with age; when a child has self-regulation, …show more content…
Sociodramatic play has an imaginary component which contributes to self-regulation. This allows children to think about ideas and let those ideas guide their behavior and it also allows children to decide what they want a specific object to represent (Elias and Berk, 2002). For example, by the age of two, a child may see a block but choose that it represents a different object, such as a keyboard or a first aid kid (Elias and Berk, 2002). As children get older, their self-regulation improves. By the age of three, a child may pretend to use an object when it isn’t even present. For example, a child may pretend to use a telephone using only their hands (Elias and Berk, 2002). As children determine they would like to participate in the adult world, they begin to follow social rules and children will act against their impulses. By doing this, children learn self control (Elias and Berk, 2002). Another important aspect of sociodramatic play is the verbal exchanges that occur which are critical for language development (Elias and Berk, 2002). Children first engage in private speech, “integrat[ing] adult prompts, demands, explanations, and strategies” (Elias and Berk, 2002). This private speech is important for the child’s complex processes. These processes include attention, memory, planning, and directing their own behavior (Elias and Berk, 2002). The private speech eventually …show more content…
This play is fantastical pretend-play. Imaginative play is important for the child because this allows them to think about objects and events that aren’t present at the time (Thibodeau et al., 2015). Pretense is another type of imaginary play where a child pretends to be a different object, person, or animal. This is different from fantastical play because pretense would be simply the event, such as “driving a car,” where fantastical would be “driving a car in outer space” (Thibodeau et al., 2015). Pretend play provides an opportunity for children for the development of their cognitive functions. These cognitive functions include “working memory, inhibitory control, and cognitive flexibility” (Thibodeau et al., 2015). In this study there were three experimental conditions, fantastical pretend play, non-imaginative play (pretense play), and a control group. The children who participated in fantastical pretend play resulted in improved cognitive functions such as working memory and they were more attentive (Thibodeau et al., 2015). An important part of this study was the difference between the two play groups, the imaginative and non-imaginative groups, because this suggests that the imaginative play is more beneficial to children since the children engaging in fantastical play had the highest improvement in their cognitive functions (Thibodeau et al., 2015).