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Symbolic Play of Children at an
Early Age
Biserka Petrović-Sočo Faculty of Teacher Education, University of Zagreb
Abstract
This paper aims to approach the development of symbolic play of children of early age and its impact on their overall development from developmental, psychological, ecological, cultural, pedagogical and methodological points of view. Emphasis is placed on the development of this specific, holistic, immanent activity, important from the very beginning of its appearance and by analysing the theories of Piaget, Bruner and Vygotsky. In symbolic play a child gradually masters the symbolic representation of the world as a self-conscious, self-initiated, self-organized and active subject by mentally modifying experiences from its reality and is therefore considered by scientists to be a forerunner of abstract thinking. Furthermore, the paper briefly presents the contribution of the theory of mind to clarifying symbolic play and its complexity already at the early stages of a child’s development. The second part deals with the pedagogical and methodological fundamentals important for the emergence and development of symbolic play in an institutional context. By emphasizing sensitivity and the importance of educator’s role in a play and in creating the conditions for its functioning one comes to the conclusion that it is necessary to study the play from a child’s perspective and to take into consideration the implications it may have on the professional development of teachers/educators, on the quality of educational practice and the development of the early childhood pedagogy. Key words: child at an early age; child’s play; educator; institution of early education; symbolic representation.
Introduction
All you need to know about children for children - you learn best from them! Loris Malaguzzi
Symbolic play is a crucial feature of a child’s cognitive and social development and the best tool for understanding the world in which he/she lives (Piaget 1963, Vygotsky
Croatian Journal of Education Vol.16; Sp.Ed.No.1/2014, pages: 235- Review paper Paper submitted: 1st^ April 2013 Paper accepted: 20th^ August 2013
Petrović-Sočo: Symbolic Play of Children at an Early Age
1977, Bruner 2000). A play is to a child the same as work to adults, a leading activity that combines ideas, feelings and relationships with the development of increasing competence and control and also enables experiencing itself as a strong self.^1 “There is no such activity, except for the play, which encompasses as many functions as if light was refracting through the prism, in which various options are tried out spontaneously, voluntarily, autotelic, and without a sense of failure.” (Duran et al., 1988, p.21).^2 This is possible for a child because of the features that characterize a symbolic play, such as: intrinsic motivation, flexibility, connectivity with positive emotions, possibility to abreact negative experiences from life and focus on the process, rather than on the result of the activity. In a symbolic play a child solves problems in an individual and specific way, without fear of failure, and in the process it also applies and varies different types of behaviour and puts them in new and unusual contexts in which it uses familiar patterns and evaluates them, changes them and copes with them accordingly. How significant a symbolic play is for the development of a human being is perhaps best illustrated by the Root-Bernstein’s study (2001) conducted among particularly creative people - people geniuses such as the Nobel Prize and the MacArthur Foundation award winners. This study showed that symbolic play occurred much more often in early childhood at people – geniuses than at the controlled group of participants in the same field, which indicates the importance of the play for human development. Study of a symbolic play can be approached from different perspectives, such as: developmental, psychoanalytic, behavioural, environmental, cultural, anthropological, phenomenological, etc., but in this paper the play will be approached from the developmental and eco-cultural perspective.
Development of Symbolic Play and the Child’s
Development
From the developmental point of view play is essential for a child because it contributes to his/her cognitive, socio-emotional and physical development. In a symbolic play different mental processes are developed: first the symbolic function, then thinking, memory, imagination, speech, creativity and all other cognitive functions. In the contents of symbolic play a child reflects different social situations such as family relationships, shopping, working people, etc. in a creative way, which contributes to the adoption of gender roles, learning the rules, socialization, mastering the culture which the child belongs to, and the creation of children’s culture,
(^1) Fogel (1993, according to Sommer, Pramling Samuelsson & Hundeide 2009) developed a theory of the dialogue self – the one that results from communication. This self appears in the earliest pre-symbolic period, i.e. before G.H.Mead and other followers of the classical theory of socialization spoke of the appearance of any other self. According to Fogel, a baby is already a social and communicative being. Self is a continuous result of a communicative process in verbal and non-verbal dialogue among people and so is its “position” located more among people than within the individual. (^2) The quotes in this article originally written in Croatian are translations made for the purpose of this paper, unless otherwise indicated.
Petrović-Sočo: Symbolic Play of Children at an Early Age
The emergence of symbolic ability enables a child to create meaning in its mind in further development; therefore, it helps a child to separate itself from the concrete plan in a reality and use thought and speech, and to express these meanings through gestures, intonation, substitution of objects and words as arbitrary symbols. In this manner a symbolic play marks the beginning of representational thinking through the use of substitution of objects or actions (Ivić, 1978, Miljak, 1984, Duran, 1988, 2001, Rogers & Sawyers 1995, Šagud, 2002). It leads to separation of characters from the marked so the child behaves as if the object or behaviour was something else than it in reality is [Bretherton, 1984, according to Bancroft, Fawcett & Hay (Eds.), 2008]. And this substitution of something that appears to be or is apparent and specific with a mental plan marks a new ability – a mental representation, essential for abstract thinking. These symbolic representations become the basis for the symbolic play that is at an early stage of development a solitary activity a child performs on one’s own and based on the previous experience gained from observing his/her surroundings. Initially, symbolic representations appear as literal, in a time delayed imitation of something already seen, and with the growth of experience and maturation a child begins to improve, modify and combine them. In a play of acting a child still does not overtake the whole role but only elements of an action. Actions in a play until the age of three are determined by situational circumstances under which playing activities are realized and in such a way that at first external objects determine the action, therefore encourage playing. Later actions are exempt from attachment to external appearance and are more determined through ideas and meaning. From logically unrelated, partial and individual actions in a play, in parallel with further development of the child, they become more complex and coherent with an imaginary temporal and spatial context of the play. Only at the age of three does a child integrate all the elements of an imaginary role in the play and is able to introduce it to other players. Thus, according to Piaget, certain levels of a play appear in early child development (Piaget according to Rogers & Saywers 1995, p. 19):
- Degree is usually associated with the emergence of speech when a child enters the preoperative level of development and takes approximately up to four years. Then there are several types of symbolic play, namely: Type 1A What a child has adopted on his/her own, he/she now applies on another, for example, a baby imagining feeding its big sister. Type 1B Children borrow or imitate the pattern of actions of others: for example, an older baby imagines making a phone call. Meltzoff (1988), for example, claims that babies at the age of 9 months can mimic the action they saw 24 hours before, and at 14 months they may delay miming a seen gesture up to a week, which indicates that the deferred imitation is a root of symbolic play already in early sensory-motor period of development.
Croatian Journal of Education, Vol.16; Sp.Ed.No.1/2014 , pages: 235-
Type 2 Children denote an object with the other one or their bodies with other people or things, such as a child between the ages of 13-19 months that imagines pouring a tea from a jug into a cup. Type 3 Children perform four types of symbolic combinations that are primarily affective, as follows: 3.1. Simple combinations: Children construct the scene in which the reality changes and create a new one - imaginary, adapted to them. 3.2 Compensatory combinations: Children correct reality by bringing illegal actions in symbolic play in order to create a desired reality. 3.3. Liquidation combinations: Children reconstruct unpleasant situations in a more desirable context in order to weaken them. 3.4. Anticipatory symbolic combinations: Children invent a person that disobeys the order and therefore suffers the consequences. Children in all four combinations of the third type of symbolic play, as described by Piaget, contribute to their emotional health, and development is facilitated through taking over a role and replacement of items and actions to change reality (Rogers & Sawyers, 1995, p. 19). At an early age a child’s progress in symbolic play is reflected in a more purposeful usage of toys, primarily as true replicas of reality, e.g. a child imagines feeding a doll, sweeping, etc., and makes use of toys very similar to real objects. Children aged between 19 and 24 months at first combine in symbolic play two toys in the imagining, then a few, such as a plate, a spoon and a sponge, they make sounds that accompany imagining a movement of cars, planes, or imagine actions as if they were someone or something else (Frost et al., 2012). When a child can mentally represent objects and engage in symbolic activities at the level of mental combinations, it gradually shows the ability to plan plays and is able to switch from one relationship to another: one to the imagined environment at the time of the play and one that is simultaneously real. In the 1980s and 1990s, the increasing interest in the historical-cultural theory of Vygotsky, which was reaffirmed by Bruner, leads to a shift in the theory of constructivism and increasingly highlights the social and cultural nature of learning, which is reflected in the understanding of the play. While Piaget saw a child as an egocentric “lone scientist” who, through interaction with the physical environment, gradually creates a mental image of the world, Vygotsky set the child and the play in a social, cultural context, seeing it as a significant role in the development of a child’s mental functions, especially thinking. He maintained that symbolic play was of the social nature in its origin and content and that it occurred as a result of the wishes and unfulfilled needs of children during early childhood, stating: “It seems to me that if there were not any currently unrealized requirements at the preschool age, there would not be any play “(Vygotsky, 1966, according to Duran et al.,
Croatian Journal of Education, Vol.16; Sp.Ed.No.1/2014 , pages: 235-
Vygotsky’s theoretical concept, the one on the areas of development. Namely, Vygotsky noted the current and proximal zone of development. In the current zone a child acts in accordance with the currently achieved level of development, and this is what it can do on its own at a certain level of development. Proximal (future) development zone refers to those tasks that a child cannot yet do on his/her own, but performs them with the help of adults or more advanced peers. While children are engaged in a cooperative dialogue with more mature partners they internalize the language of these interactions and use them to organize their own independent efforts in the same way. According to sociocultural theory, a supportive management of an adult that creates a support (scaffold) to children’s learning is essential to their cognitive development. This communication is sensitively adapted to a child’s present stage of development by offering the necessary assistance and encouraging him/her to take more responsibility for the task when his/her abilities increase (Berk, 1994). Due to these settings a symbolic play promotes the development of internalized representations by which a child appears to be more in line with internal ideas than with external reality, in other words, it acts independently of what it sees (Vygotsky 1933/1967, p. 11 according to Pramling Samuelsson, 2009). Furthermore, the role- play in an imaginary scenario requires that the child simultaneously conducts two types of actions: external (with objects and actions-substitutes) and internal (as operations of meaning). Internal operations in symbolic play are quite dependent on external operations with objects because a child cannot be easily and immediately disconnected from the concrete plan (Berk and Winsler, 1995; Cole et al., 1978; Duran, 1988; Ivić, 1978; Vygotsky, 1977). However, the incidence of internal actions shows the start of the transmission of the earlier forms of thinking (sensory-motor and visual-representational) to more advanced, more abstract thinking. (Sommer, Pramling Samuelsson & Hundeide, 2009). Therefore, Vygotsky saw a symbolic play as an excellent tool, a highly motivated shape and adaptive mechanism to encourage cognitive development in early childhood, especially for the development of reflective thinking as well as for self-regulation and socially cooperative behaviour. And that is why a child can reach in a symbolic play what in reality it cannot yet. A famous Vygotsky’s slogan in connection with this is that a child in a play is a head taller than he/she really is. For Bruner a symbolic representation is also significant for cognitive development within the systems: action, iconic and symbolic, and symbolic play is considered a kind of transition from the action in the iconic and symbolic system. Special importance is given to speech stating that the possibility of coding stimulates and liberates the individual from attachment to act only on the factual point of view, and is supplied with a more sophisticated and flexible cognition. In symbolic play Bruner sees a medium for free trial and combining behaviour and application of skills that a child would not express under other circumstances. For these reasons, he sees in a play the strength for the development of tools and strategies to solve problems. According to
Petrović-Sočo: Symbolic Play of Children at an Early Age
him a play is a social phenomenon and an integral part of human culture, a type of communication system and behaviours that allow the exchange of messages. “Making sense is a social process, it is an activity, which is always located within the cultural and historical context. (...) if a child is placed in a shared social context, it seems more competent as an intelligent social operator, than as a ‘lone scientist’”, when it deals with the world of the unknown (Bruner & Haste, 1987, p. 1). Thus, Bruner reaffirms Vygotsky’s theory which enriches Piaget’s constructivism with the emphasis on the importance of the social dimension in the development of a human being, and therefore adds a significant role of culture in human development.
Theory of Mind Helps Understanding in a Play
The theory of mind, developed in the 80s and 90s by developmental psychologists, contributes to clarifying child’s abilities that are needed in a play and are developed in it. Researchers found that understanding desires, beliefs and intentions of others is of crucial importance for the initiation and progress of symbolic play. To be spontaneous and reciprocal is an important element for inclusion in the play with others and requires a complex understanding of their own mental state and the state of co-players. In this way the theory of mind becomes a primary communication tool in the lives of children, but it is not less important in adult life. Children’s ability to connect the mental world like wishes and beliefs and understand them in themselves and others allows them to act as mental agents. Symbolic play, especially at an early age, does not begin with direct calls, for example let’s play, but children transmit relevant implicit signs in the context using meta-communicative language like gestures, specific body posture, persistent looking at another child, etc. Garvey (1974, according to Sommer, Samuelsson & Hundeide, 2009) defined the play meta-communication as regulatory actions that children show during the play in order to maintain it, negotiate in it and direct it. Negotiation is especially important because the success of the intended interaction depends on synchronizing different wishes of children that are trying to find balance in the play. It is interesting to note that, regardless of the already mentioned study, Mira Stambak came to similar results that were based on her observations while studying and at the same time participating in the prosocial relationships of children in a younger nursery group in Paris in the 1980s. By repeating opposition and the need to fulfil different desires in the context of creating an imaginary, playing scenarios, foundations are set for the understanding of the opinions of others. Intensive detection of imagining which acquires adapting to wishes and concepts of another person or harmonizing with our own imagining contributes to the understanding that others see the world differently. Lilard (2000, according to Sommer, Samuelsson & Hundeide, 2009, p. 18) states that the act of imagining includes:
(1) the one who imagines, (2) a reality on which one imagines and which is generally different from what is imagined,
Petrović-Sočo: Symbolic Play of Children at an Early Age
and represent situations with most experience from the real world can be seen. So a child sets scenes like going for a walk, eating, sleeping, driving, etc. Of course, this does not apply to all children, and especially not those in the period of adjustment to the new institutional environment, when a child only studies the condition it was put into and gradually builds confidence in this environment. Symbolic representations are an integral part of the educational process of the youngest children, and as such can be seen in the educational groups dominated by warm socio-emotional climate with a permanent educator, the atmosphere of peace, relaxation and freedom, good spatial and material organization and appropriate timing of daily activities. The child will be playing on the condition that his/her other needs are met. Better relationships between educators and children will create an atmosphere for successful communication, which will, in turn, affect the improvement of relations between the children. Atmosphere permeated with mutual trust, in which every individual feels the security and freedom to express their thoughts and feelings, and in which collaborative relationships are established, will be motivating for communication, and then for the play as well. In contrast, an atmosphere of anxiety, distrust, in which group members are afraid to express their thoughts and feelings and are afraid of condemnation and disapproval, is very demotivating, blocking successful communication and mutual play. Eventually, close friendly relations allow children to develop more inter-subjectivity and mutual understanding of desires, thoughts and intentions through joint long-term experience in a positive environment. And these experiences of collaborative activities are required in symbolic play because they imply the construction of common meanings by emphasizing the necessary coordination between the participants. In this respect, Corsaro (1985, according to Sommer et al., 2009) states that children reflect their perception of the world in a play within the peer culture in which they depend on reciprocal peer activities and mutual understanding of their desires, beliefs and intentions of other children. At an early age in play of pretending it is the object that encourages the child to act, and not vice versa, so the equipment in the centres in which children can play independently is of major importance (for example, when a child sees a spoon it encourages it to feed dolls). ). In the third year of life, children play parallel to each other and reflect a number of related symbolic actions in various centres of activity - from the family-drama to the “master” activities, provided that their teachers supplement and change the necessary props in order to help them represent these activities. Playes last longer because a child has more experience in his/her surroundings, and starts to cooperate with other children more successfully. In this period of life children love to dress up in various costumes, which further motivates them to symbolize certain actions, use speech and exchange with other children. All this will lead to taking a role in a play at a later stage of development. Children use objects in different ways, and it is significant that the same item at a different time can have different meanings. From the age of three (on average) a child achieves a new stage in the development of
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the play – it appoints a role and acts symbolically in accordance with its features and there also appears the division of functions among teammates. A child follows the real sequence of activities in a play as it has experienced it. At this age children often step out of the role in order to agree on further sequence of activities or perhaps on a new role. In this developmental stage in their play with peers, children aged 3-4, along with a simple play scenario, show initial capability of the so-called meta-play or meta-level of a play (Duran, 1988, 2001, Edwards, Gandini & Forman (Eds.), 1998, Sommer et al., 2009). It is a child’s ability to distinguish between effects on the imaginary, play plan and cooperation with another child outside a play framework in order to organize and arrange the play. At the age of four, a child starts to plan activities using speech, and the execution of the action is followed by speech. This phenomenon of verbal presentation of thoughts will be, as well as symbolic play, kept up to the age of 6 or 7, when it will be internalized and will take place only at the level of thinking. An organization that provides common socializing and play of children of different ages is a part of socio-educational conditions of the institutional context, with supportive teachers who respect, feel and understand a child and who know how to observe and listen, as well as set the scene for play (toys, space, stimulating environment and uninterrupted time). In the field of symbolic play this means that older children not only offer a more complex model of the play in which a younger child will be involved mentally (not directly) as an active observer, but can also be sensitive to other needs of younger children. Thus, as more experienced players they will quickly understand the wishes and intentions of younger children in a play and will help with guided participation in coordinating the play and/or offer to direct the focus to a better mutual understanding of the play. Furthermore, imagining someone or something else in the play places great demands and challenges on younger children. They do not find it easy to simulate thoughts, actions and emotions of another and at the same time coordinate with an imaginary scenario of the peer (Duran, 1988, Sommer et al., 2009), and their associating with older children can significantly help in that respect. The central figure in the facilitating or disabling children’s symbolic play is the identity of a teacher or educator in all his or her professional and personal dimensions. He/she orchestrates the children’s group life and it is therefore of great importance whether he/she respects the children, observes with interest, listens, understands and appropriately responds to the socio-emotional and mental world of a child, or simply does his/her job routinely without documenting and reflecting on what is going on among children and between the educator and the children, i.e. whether the educator conducts the children’s play or subtly encourages it. It is of great importance that professionals work with children at an early age without fear that their presence will disrupt the play or terminate it, when children are sensitive to all kinds of influences from the environment. It is important that a child feels free, accepted and loved in a play, and has adequate conditions to be able
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experiences and ideas that will continue to serve in the processing of the play, or can cautiously lead children to a higher level of cognitive functioning during the play. Sometimes he or she can just play on their own in front of the youngest children. It is important to accept the imaginary situation initiated by the child as a partner in the play, or to show sincere interest in activities, socializing and children’s discoveries during the play in a non-direct manner, but by being fully interested at the same time. It is difficult to predict in advance which procedures will be applied by the educator and when, because it depends on a variety of contextual situations, assessment and creativity of certain teachers, but it should be noted that it is important that the educator observes and records the behaviour of children while playing. Subsequent reflection and dialogue with their peers on the resulting pedagogical documentation can help understand children in symbolic play better, to study and understand the ways in which children learn, understand and interpret the world, to notice their potentially incongruent interference in the play and gradually develop a more subtle approach to the play. Documentation is a tool that helps to make the process of children’s learning in symbolic play visible and divisible, but also makes evident the unpredictability and complexity of the play process and the role of educators in it (Giudici & Rinaldi, 2001). Therefore, one of the primary tasks of educators participating in the children’s play through its documentation and reflection should be “learning modes of play” for the sake of gradual lifelong learning and professional development in the function of a better understanding of children and making sense of the world through symbolic representation in a way the children see it. In other words, the educator should approach the play from a child’s perspective not to abuse it for their teaching goals but to study and continue to subtly evolve it. The study of symbolic play and other children’s activities allows a preschool teacher to understand a child better as a self-initiating, active and self-conscious entity that needs to be respected.
Conclusion
From the above review of the development of symbolic play of children at an early age and its importance for the development of a child, it can be concluded that it is a specific activity immanent to a child, with the help of which a child develops as a whole person in all areas of development. Development of symbolic play is motivated by hidden cognitive changes and capacity of a child to manipulate symbols and representations in a specific ecological and cultural context (Bloch & Pellegrini, 1989, according to Sommer et al., 2009). Due to these settings a symbolic play promotes the development of internalized representations by which a child appears to be more in line with internal ideas than with external reality, in other words, it acts independently of what it sees. These internal operations are at an early age quite dependant on external operations with objects, because a child cannot be easily and immediately disconnected from a concrete plan and therefore searches
Petrović-Sočo: Symbolic Play of Children at an Early Age
for support in substitution of objects and actions. However, the incidence of internal actions through characters indicates a start of the shift from earlier forms of thinking (sensory-motor and visual-representational) to more advanced, abstract thinking. Therefore, developmental psychologists see great potential in symbolic play, especially for intellectual development, and consider it as a forerunner of abstract thinking. Piaget saw a play as a form of immature thinking, Vygotsky as the essence of mental development, as well as Bruner who also added a cultural dimension. Contemporary scientists believe that learning and development are inseparable from symbolic play because a child tries to make sense of his/her experiences and create personal meaning. That is why they try to study the play from the perspective of children as active participants in constructing their own lives and build a new pedagogy based on it, called by some of the most modern authors the development education/pedagogy. The theory of mind, developed during the 1980s by developmental psychologists, also contributes to understanding the origin and development of symbolic play, especially in the part of mutual alignment of children in the play, because in order to conduct and implement the play with others, a complex understanding of the player’s own and teammate’s mental state is required. In this way the theory of mind becomes a primary communication tool, not only in the lives of children, but also because the adults as well want to understand the play and participate in it congruently so they should have access to the reciprocal process of imagining and adaptation of children in the facilitation of a joint play scenario. Highlighting the development of symbolic play and its effects on the holistic development of a child at an early age can have significant pedagogical implications on educational practice by directing teachers to carefully watch, listen to, document and reflect on children’s symbolic play. This should help them understand it better and comprehend it through the child’s perspective in order to gradually create optimal conditions in their professional development and apply appropriate methodological procedures for its encouragement, promotion and child development by changing their image of a child and its possibilities. Some authors suggest that in recent years a child spends less time in a play for various reasons and mostly due to a hectic lifestyle, changes in family structure, the growing orientation towards academic achievements, the impact of modern technology, etc. Due to that, as well as the unbeatable value of play for a child’s development and education, this work should be seen, among other things, as a kind of appeal to cautious approach and fostering symbolic play in contemporary childhood.
Petrović-Sočo: Symbolic Play of Children at an Early Age
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Biserka Petrović-Sočo Faculty of Teacher Education University of Zagreb, Savska 77, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia mali.profesor@gmail.com
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Simbolička igra djece
rane dobi
Sažetak
U radu se razvoju simboličke igre i njezinu utjecaju na cjelokupni razvoj djece rane dobi prilazi s razvojno-psihološkog, ekološko-kulturnog i pedagoško-metodičkog motrišta. Naglasak je na razvoju te specifične, holističke i djetetu imanentne i glavne aktivnosti od početka njezine pojave i to raščlambom Piagetove, Vigotskijeve i Brunerove teorije. U simboličkoj igri, mentalno prerađujući iskustva iz stvarnosti, dijete kao samosvjesni, samoinicirani, samoorganizirani i aktivni subjekt postupno ovladava simboličkom reprezentacijom svijeta, pa je znanstvenici smatraju pretečom apstraktnog mišljenja. U radu je ukratko izložen doprinos teorije uma rasvjetljavanju simboličke igre i njezine složenosti već na ranom stupnju djetetova razvoja. U drugom dijelu rada obrađuju se pedagoško-metodičke osnove važne za pojavu i razvoj simboličke igre u institucijskome kontekstu. Apostrofirajući osjetljivost odgojiteljeve uloge u igri i stvaranju uvjeta za njezino odvijanje, zaključuje se o potrebi proučavanja igre iz dječje perspektive i implikacijama koje ono može imati na profesionalni razvoj odgojitelja, kvalitetu odgojne prakse i razvoj pedagogije ranog djetinjstva.
Ključne riječi: dijete rane dobi; dječja igra; odgojitelj; simbolička reprezentacija; ustanova ranog odgoja i obrazovanja.
