Australian Association for
Research in Education
30 November 1998
A Therapeutic Model of Play
Elspeth Harley
University of South Australia
Department for Education, Training and Employment
South Australia
This paper aims to present an approach adopted by the researcher whereby a therapeutic model of play is being developed for use in preschool settings to assist preschool teachers in the developmental assessment of dramatic play.
The paper reflects work in progress currently being undertaken by the researcher in a metropolitan preschool setting with a sample group of children aged four to five years. The research is being funded through the Lillian de Lissa Scholarship.
Introduction
As a community we are becoming increasingly aware of the extent of childhood trauma in our society. An increasing number of preschool teachers in Adelaide, South Australia are expressing their concerns about the high numbers of four year olds who enter preschool programs with low self esteem, poor social skills, poorly developed concentration span and often aggressive behaviour. An increasing number of four year olds are being labelled as 'disruptive', or 'aggressive' and are being given 'time out' or placed on behaviour modification programs.
What does it mean to be a four year old entering a preschool program without the confidence and the social and play skills required to participate as an effective member of the group? How can preschool teachers reach out to children who demonstrate aggressive, disruptive withdrawn behaviour and who fail to form satisfactory relationships in the preschool setting? What are the play needs of these children?
As a researcher seeking answers to these questions I have investigated the area of therapeutic play. The therapeutic aspects of play have been used successfully in the settings of drama therapy and play therapy. Can they be used with equal success and effectiveness in the preschool setting?
As far back as 1969 Axline wrote what became a definitive and classic book on play therapy. She defined play therapy as "an opportunity that is offered to the child to experience growth under the most favourable conditions. Since play is his natural medium for self expression, the child is given the opportunity to play out his accumulated feelings of tension, frustration, insecurity, aggression, fear, bewilderment, confusion." (Axline, 1969 p 15)
Axline further stated that, "play therapy is based on the assumption that the individual has within himself, not only the ability to solve his own problems satisfactorily, but also a growth impulse that makes mature behaviour more satisfying than immature behaviour." (Axline, 1969 p 15)
More recently, Jennings (1993) wrote of the importance of the preventative values of play which she believes should receive due consideration in the child's development during the early years. Jennings writes that children who are able to play are better able to help themselves and that children who are able to play and engage in role and dramatic play will have more resources to draw on in both childhood and adult life.
Cattanach (1994) describes dramatic play as the way children are able to transform experience through the symbolic form of the fictions they create. Courtney (1985) describes this process as children 'trying out' possible futures, acting out problems of the past and engaging in problem solving through the fictional present.
Jennings (1993) documented a developmental paradigm of play which has three stages, embodiment, projection and role. The three stages develop in different ways but have a cumulative effect being carried forward into more complex play activity.
Developmental Paradigm of Play (E.P.R. Jennings 1993)
This paradigm adds to our understanding of children's play by showing clearly how play changes as the child grows and develops. The developmental paradigm can be used very effectively in the preschool setting as an intervention strategy with children to identify the child's starting point and to expand the child's world through play.
The Preschool Context
Observations in the preschool setting inform us that some children engage in role and dramatic play on a regular basis, others do so less frequently and some never do at all. These variations raise some interesting questions about differences between environments in the home and preschool setting, players and non players and the strategies used by preschool teachers to support players and non players.
What do four year old players in the preschool setting look like? Maddie, Ben and Joseph have been described by their preschool teachers as players. They are able to act out stories and events and include others in their game. They improvise scenes and characters and take on real and imagined roles.
Maddie, Ben and Joseph have built a 'secret magic cave' under a large tree with rugs and blankets. They use several old pots to mix a magic potion made from water, leaves, rose petals, invisible stinging nettles and gold', and chant a magic spell, "abracadabra, hocus pocus, lizzie dizzie, one fried goanna, two dead mice, ZOOM". In their play Maddie and Ben are cave creatures and Joseph is their pet dinosaur. When they drink the magic potion, Maddie and Ben become space creatures who are looking for a pet dinosaur to take back to the moon.
Lydia and Fee join in the play and are instructed by Maddie to be the baby sitters for the pet dinosaur. Lambros and Charlie are in the sand area making pizzas and join in the game with moon pizzas for everyone. The game continues, elaborated in different ways over several days.
What do non players look like?
Joseph is a four year old who has been identified by his preschool teacher as a child who is a "non player". His play seems aimless and he spends time in the role of a 'superhero', running around unable to engage with his peers or enter into play episodes. At times his play is aggressive, pushing, hitting, teasing and frightening children as he tries to engage and interact with them. His play patterns are unpredictable, his concentration is very short and he experiences rejection from other children.
Millie a four year old has been identified by her preschool teacher as a "non player", who lacks confidence, takes no risks and is constantly seeking reassurance from the preschool staff. She lacks social skills and her outdoor play involves chasing other children who find her behaviour very frustrating. For some part of each day she spends time in the home corner where her play is very repetitive and involves moving things from one place to another, without initiating any contact with her peers.
For children such as Joseph and Millie, entry into a preschool program in which play is a planned part of the curriculum can be very threatening or confusing. They both have access to play, but access alone is not enough. Their preschool teachers need to be able to determine what knowledge, skills and support they need in order to be able to engage in role and dramatic play. If they can become players then they will be able to use play as a vehicle for developing their individual identity as well as their social and group identity.
Observations provide the tool that allow preschool teachers to support play and intervene in planned and imaginative ways. Observations of children's play can reveal structures, patterns and meanings that may not be evident in more structured, adult directed context. If preschool teachers can value and share children's play, then they will be able to increase the status of play as well as the self esteem of the players. When preschool teachers adopt an investigative stance towards play and become familiar with the criteria for assessing it, its full impact becomes visible (Stefatya 1995).
Why are some children players and others non players?
Is it because non players lack the skills and procedural knowledge about how to play or because they lack the emotional skills and ease needed to engage in dramatic play? In finding answers to these questions we need to state that, sadly, for many children adults always direct their play and these children are praised for reproducing what the child wants. These children are not allowed to develop their own imaginative and problem solving resources and often become rigid players afraid to take risks. Some children are comfortable when told what to do, but become uncomfortable when given a choice. Dramatic play which is about making choices can therefore become threatening.
Equally threatening to the child's growth can be an environment in which the child receives no adult support or involvement in their play. These children may develop play that has no rules or boundaries, something that can become frightening and out of control.
In seeking further information about 'players and non players', I spoke with 16 preschool teachers and collected information using a questionnaire format about players and non players in their preschools.
The 16 centres had a total enrolment of 733 four year old children. Directors were given the following definition of dramatic play to guide their thinking before answering the questionnaire:
.... dramatic play is defined as situations where role playing becomes more complex and includes dressing up, developing dialogue and creating environments within which to play different roles. Scenes and stories are enacted with peers being included although there may be some situations of a child playing in a dramatic way on their own.
Based on their knowledge and observations of children in their preschool, they were asked to use their professional judgement to nominate children who could be categorised as non players. The attached graph shows that 18% or approximately 1 in 5 children were identified as non players. Of these, 61% were boys.
When asked to identify words that best identify non players, staff used the following:
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When asked how confident they were in developing strategies to support 'non players' to become 'players' most teachers indicated mildly confident to confident (see attached).
When asked to identify specific strategies the majority responded that they would add props to develop the play; none reflected on their role in assessing children's play in order to determine the skill development that required supporting.
If, as early childhood educators, we believe that all children should have relevant and meaningful play experiences and that dramatic play is an essential part of their development, how can we give children the relevant knowledge and skills to become players? What strategies can we use?
Applicability of the Paradigm
One strategy is the Jennings developmental paradigm of play which has the potential to be used in preschool settings as the basis for observation, assessment and in planning for play. The paradigm provides a framework that helps preschool teachers understand their role in supporting and extending children's play and in particular, role and dramatic play. The paradigm provides the basis for enhanced observation and interpretation of dramatic play which may result in preschool teachers developing clearly defined goals for individual children's play.
As a researcher I am currently investigating the :
The research will focus on dramatic play as an area of learning and will use one of the unique features of developmental assessments, a 'progress map' to describe the nature of development and growth in the area of dramatic play. It is the progress map that will provide a frame of reference for monitoring the individual child's development in the area of dramatic play.
Conclusion
Children have to play as a way to problem solve, to think things out. Cattanach (1994) describes play as the place where children can learn to develop an understanding of their relationships to the world outside the self.
The challenge for preschool teachers is to create a framework in which they can make sense of play though careful analysis and interpretations of children's actions, interactions, choices and repeated play themes. The EPR paradigm offers such a framework.
Preschool children can develop the specific play skills that enable them with support to modify their social behaviour, improve their self esteem and develop a positive self identity within the preschool setting. Play starts at birth and preschool environments that promote play for all children and allow all children to feel motivated, esteemed and appreciated are cause for celebration.
References
Courtney, R., 1980, The Dramatic Curriculum, Drama Book Specialists, New York
Fein, G. and Kinney, P. 1994, He's a Nice Alligator: Observations on the Affective Organisation of Pretence in Slade, A. and Palmer Wolfe, D. (Eds) Children at Play: Clinical and Developmental Approaches to Meaning and Representation, Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Jennings, S. 1993, Playtherapy with Children: A Practitioners Guide, Blackwells Science, Oxford
Jennings, S. 1995 (a), Theatre Ritual and Transformation: The Senoi Temiars, Routledge, London
Jennings, S. 1995 (b) , Playing for Real, International Play Journal, Vol 3 1995
Jennings, S. Cattanach, A., Mitchell, S., Chesner, A. and Meldrum, B. 1994, The Handbook of Dramatherapy, Routledge, London
Jones, E. and Reynolds, G. 1992, The Play's the Thing: Teachers' Roles in Children's Play, Teachers College Press, New York.
Paley, V. 1992, You Can't Say You Can't Play, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA.
Shefatya, L. 1995, The Assessment of Dramatic and Sociodramatic Play: Goals, Tools, Criteria and Conceptual Frameworks, in play, Policy and Practice, Klugman, E (Ed) Redleaf Press, St. Paul, Minnesota.
Singer, D. and Singer, J. 1991, The House of Make Believe: Children's Play and the Developing Imagination, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA.