Pretend Play: Dramatic and Sociodramatic
As children grow into toddlerhood and beyond, an even stronger social component becomes evident as more imaginative pretend play develops. The early research of Smilansky and Shefatya (1990) demonstrated the positive effects of play on social development. Their methodological analysis has proven to be a helpful way of looking at children’s play and is widely used by early educators today. They speak of dramatic and sociodramatic play, differentiating between the two partially on the basis of the number of children involved in the activity. Dramatic play involves imitation and may be carried out alone, but the more advanced sociodramatic play entails verbal communication and interaction with two or more people, as well as imitative role playing, make-believe in regard to objects and actions and situations, and persistence in the play over a period of time.
Sociodramatic play in particular also helps children learn to put themselves in another’s place, thereby fostering the growth of empathy and consideration of others. It helps them define social roles: They learn by experiment what it is like to be the baby or the mother or the doctor. And it provides countless opportunities for acquiring social skills: how to enter a group and be accepted by its members, how to balance power and bargain with other children, and how to work out the social give-and-take that is the key to successful group interaction (Elkind, 2007; Hirsh-Pasek & Golinkoff, 2003; Jones & Cooper, 2006; Jones & Reynolds, 2011; Koralek, 2004).