Cognitive and Language Benefits Provided by Play
Play has a way of translating children’s thoughts into actions—and their actions into thoughts. Children gain experience traveling between tangible encounters and mental representations of those encounters. Sometimes the thoughts (mental representations) precede the actions (play); and sometimes the actions (play) contribute to their understanding of objects and events.
Consider Luis and Paulo, second graders who recently accompanied their teenage cousin to a neighborhood fair. Among the many wonders the boys observed was a local rock band performing on a makeshift stage. The flamboyant performer captured their attention and they enjoyed listening, cheering, dancing, and singing along. During recess on their first day back at school, the boys raced to the top of the playground climber, grabbed their “air” guitars and began to perform, mimicking the facial expressions and body movements of the guitarist while making guitar sound effects. Luis and Paulo were able to translate their thoughts and memories of the guitarist’s performance to actions, symbolically representing their experiences through their play.
Pretend play gives children opportunities to use problem solving and their imaginations to transform their environments as necessary to sustain their play scenarios (Elkind, 2004). Additionally, memory and attention are enhanced as children maintain their play roles through internal focus (Lester & Russell, 2010). In fact, brain research indicates that play is an essential behavior for making permanent neurological connections in the brain (Jensen, 2005; Shore, 1997).
Play also supports the development of language skills including better verbalization, richer receptive and expressive vocabularies, and use of more complex sentence structures (Olfman, 2003). Pretend play extends children’s abilities to use situation-specific language as they engage in role-play that requires them to stay in character to sustain the play scenario. For example, a group of children pretending to be in a pizza parlor might have to role-play customers, food servers, and cooks. Each role brings a different perspective to the “dining out” scenario and children adjust their voices, word choices, sentence structures, and body language to carry out the roles successfully.