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The purpose of the study was to explore the sociodramatic play taking place in an early childhood classroom, with a specific focus on the characteristics of play, the game construction process that takes place during play, children’s agency in their play culture, and finally, the role of teachers as adults and as participants serving as guides and facilitators in the play. The study utilized an ethnographic case study approach to uncover play culture within the Little Daisies classroom. The data for the study came from lengthy observations throughout one school year in the classroom of 5-year-old children and semi-structured interviews with children regarding their sociodramatic play. Findings suggest that children constructing “games with rules” is a significant component of the classroom play culture, and non-distracted sociodramatic play provides children with many opportunities to practice their agency and function as social actors in their close environment. The concept of agency, teachers’ beliefs, and executive function skills were used to contextualize sociodramatic play for further discussion.

Wearing costumes is a common experience during early childhood and is often important to sociodramatic play. Costumes tend to be highly gendered for both girls and boys (such as princess and superhero costumes). However, there is very little research on the impact that wearing costumes has on gender-differentiated behavior, such as toy preference, prosocial behavior, or perseverance during early childhood. The current study included 223 U.S. children, aged between 3 and 5 years-old. Children were assigned to wear either a gendered, counter-gendered, or gender-neutral costume, and they then took part in three gender-related tasks. There was no impact of wearing costumes on any task for girls. However, boys preferred feminine toys significantly more when wearing a neutral costume when compared to a masculine-typed one. Additionally, boys were significantly less likely to help when wearing a masculine-typed costume compared to a feminine-typed costume. There are several implications of these findings that are discussed in the paper. Parents may wish to purchase a wide range of costumes for their child for sociodramatic play, particularly for boys. Therapists could also potentially use costumes during play therapy to discuss gender issues. Additionally, costume producers could consider marketing a wide range of costumes for children as opposed to largely focusing on gendered ones.

The aim of this study was to examine the design features of six outdoor play areas and the play preferences of children using these areas. Through the behavior mapping method, 102 preschoolers were observed for 3 days during their hour-long outdoor play time. The Playground’s Physical Characteristics Scale and Play Observation Form were utilized for observations. It was indicated that manufactured fixed equipment primarily dominated the observed play areas and play types of children. Functional/parallel play was the most commonly observed play type within areas with manufactured fixed equipment. However, different cognitive and social play types were observed in areas that included natural elements, open area, and loose materials. Thus, it was indicated that there is need for change from a traditional design mind-set regarding play areas, to more child-centered designs where the needs and inputs of children are taken into consideration during the design process.

Contradictory reports of play strengths and weaknesses for children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) persist in the literature. We compared the play of 19 children with ASD to 19 typically developing (TD) children matched on language and cognitive skills. All children were verbal. Results revealed no differences in indiscriminate actions, functional play, and object interest. The children with ASD showed less symbolic play and a significantly fewer number of children met criteria for emerging or mastered symbolic play. A specific deficit was observed for “doll as agent” symbolic play. Outcomes suggest that compared to children without disabilities, children with ASD may have comparable functional play skills and struggle with the transition to some, but not all types of symbolic play.

Specifically, cross-area play * helps children make unusual and unexpected connections, which can promote creativity * encourages development across multiple domains as children think, create, communicate, persist, problem solve, and collaborate * fosters confidence and helps children set and follow rules in their play with others * creates more fluid, engaging classroom spaces But when children engage in cross-area play, their play is not scripted. [...]for children interested in dinosaurs, transform a science center into an archaeological dig site and integrate sand from the sensory table and books from the literacy center. * Inspire new connections. The block area typically invites children to erect buildings, bridges, and roads. Because these centers direct children toward a specific type of play, they can limit the range of play scenarios and surprise discoveries.

Objective This study elucidates relations among playtime, bedtime, and cortisol levels for children facing economic hardship. Background Poverty‐related stressors overburden physiological systems that respond to stress, with implications for child health and development. The family microsystem can offer protection, yet no prior published studies have explored whether time allocated to various home activities might relate to stress levels. Method The study included 130 children aged 3 to 5 years who attended a Head Start preschool, and their primary caregivers. Trained research assistants completed daily telephone interviews with the caregivers across 10 days near the start of the preschool year to assess activities at home and, at a midyear time point, collected child saliva samples upon preschool arrival on 2 weekdays to assess morning levels of the stress hormone cortisol. Results Zero‐order correlational and linear regression analyses indicated that a greater proportion of playtime and earlier bedtime relative to waketime (i.e., more sleep time) related to lower morning cortisol levels. Conclusion Greater playtime and sleep time may mitigate the tax of poverty on physiological stress response systems. Implications Implications concern family strengths that might be built upon to promote the well‐being of children facing economic hardship.

Amid the increasing interest in applying augmented reality (AR) in educational settings, this study explores the design and enactment of an AR-infused robot system to enhance children's satisfaction and sensory engagement with dramatic play activities. In particular, we conducted an exploratory study to empirically examine children's perceptions toward the computer- and robot-mediated AR systems designed to make dramatic play activities interactive and participatory. A multi-disciplinary expert group consisting of early childhood education experts, preschool teachers, AR specialists, and robot engineers collaborated to develop a learning scenario and technological systems for dramatic play. The experiment was conducted in a kindergarten setting in Korea, with 81 children (aged 5–6 years old). The participants were placed either in the computer-mediated AR condition (n = 40) or the robot-mediated AR condition (n = 41). We administered an instrument to measure children's perceived levels of the following variables: (a) satisfaction (i.e., interest in dramatic play & user-friendliness), (b) sensory immersion (i.e., self-engagement, environment-engagement & interaction-engagement), and (c) media recognition (i.e., collaboration with media, media function & empathy with media). Data analysis indicates that children in the robot-mediated condition showed significantly higher perceptions than those in the computer-mediated condition regarding the following aspects: interest in dramatic play (satisfaction), interactive engagement (sensory immersion), and empathy with media (media recognition). Furthermore, it was found that the younger-aged children and girls, in particular, perceived AR-infused dramatic play more positively than the olderaged children and boys, respectively. The contribution of this study is to provide empirical evidence about the affordances of robots and AR-based learning systems for young children. This remains a relatively unexplored area of research in the field of learning technologies. Implications of the current study and future research directions are also discussed.

Technology is ubiquitous in the educational field nowadays. Augmented Reality is one of the emerging technologies with more potential in educational contexts in the mid-term. The purpose of this study is to evaluate if the use of Augmented Reality in early childhood education improves the learning of English as a foreign language, increases pupils’ motivation and helps children at this age to establish more positive socio-affective relationships. A quasi-experimental study with an experimental and a control group was carried out with 52 and 50 early childhood education pupils, respectively. The results show a significant improvement in motivation, learning and socio-affective relationships in the experimental group, who completed instruction where AR was employed as a teaching tool, in comparison with the control group.

Social communication deficits are one of the two core characteristics demonstrated by individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and require explicit instruction as soon as the deficit is discovered. The present investigation examined the use of video-enhanced activity schedules using tablet technology for teaching social interaction to children with ASD. A multiple probe across participants design was used to teach four preschool aged participants with ASD to show something they had accomplished to peers, and to demonstrate specific social conventions when doing so. An adapted alternating treatment design was also used to compare the differential effects of video enhanced activity schedules to electronic schedules without video. Two participants acquired social skills faster in the video enhanced activity schedule condition, and the other two participants learned at a comparable rate across interventions.

Building on established pedagogy and technological advancement, this article presents a model of gameful design for learning using interactive tabletops, enacted and evaluated in the context of socio-emotional education. Based on the proposed model, we detail the design of a technology-enhanced learning experience in which a series of traditional lessons are enriched by collaborative work on interactive tabletops; four gameful activities are used which may be directly linked to a school curriculum. We conduct a qualitative case study with the participation of 86 fifth grade students across two elementary schools which have a significant minority enrolment. We demonstrate the ways in which the students draw on recently-acquired knowledge, engage in dramatic play, share the digital space and collaborate intensively to achieve a new and refined understanding of concepts and behaviours linked to perspective-taking. We discuss how tabletops, in synergy with constructivist pedagogy and principles of gameful design, allow researchers and practitioners to promote communication, collaboration and perspective-taking in ways that were hitherto difficult to enact in traditional lessons. Gameful design for learning is seen as a multilevel endeavour, which involves the selection of tasks and tools as well as the behaviour of the learners and the instructor as participants in the learning environment.