SOCIODRAMATIC PLAY IN THE EARLY CHILDHOOD

Sociodramatic Play in the Early Childhood

(Literature Review)



Sociodramatic Play in the Early Childhood

(Literature Review)

Sociodramatic play defined in terms of social play with others, sustained role taking, and a narrative line, this is something that children from about 3 years of age engage in a lot. Such play can be quite complex, involving an understanding of others' intent and role, sophisticated language constructions and the development of sometimes novel story lines.

Smilansky (1968) suggested that sociodramatic play assists language development, cognitive development, creativity, and role taking. She also claimed that pretend and sociodramatic play were less frequent and less complex in disadvantaged children. This led her and others to develop play tutoring (intervention by an adult) to raise levels of these kinds of play; adults would provide suitable props, visits, etc. and encourage the sociodramatic play of children in nurseries and kindergartens, such that subsequently they became more able to sustain this play themselves.

Smilansky's ideas about the value of sociodramatic play were tested by a number of experimental studies, including play-tutoring studies. In these, a group or class of children that received play tutoring was compared with those who did not. Generally, the play-tutored children improved more on measures of cognition, language, and creativity, apparently supporting Smilansky's views.

A number of critiques were made of these studies. Many of them pointed to flaws due to selective interpretation of results, effects of experimental bias, and the use of inappropriate control groups. For example, in the traditional play-tutoring study, the play-tutored children received more stimulation and adult contact generally, so one cannot really conclude that it is the extra play that brought about the developmental benefits. Further studies took account of these criticisms. This step included balancing play-tutoring with skills tutoring (e.g., coloring, picture dominoes) and assessing outcomes blind to the child's treatment condition. Doing so failed to reveal many differences (Smith, 1988), which suggests that benefits of socio drama tic play need not be essential for development. Nevertheless, play-tutoring does work out as equal to skills tutoring in many domains, and it is generally enjoyable and sociable for children in the preschool years, so there are sound reasons to encourage it in the nursery curriculum.

George Bernard Shaw once quoted that when people grow old they do not quit playing games but when they stop playing games, they usually grow old.

These years, we sense a strong want to protect play-time for kids, too. According to Chudacoff (2008), a literary historian at Brown University, today's kids have not as much of time to engage in recreational activities than kids of preceding generations. By means of the augmented stress on academics and enhancement activities, pre-school kids are currently spending much of their time in ordered and organized activities and planned instructions and not as much of time in self-sufficient, creative free play. Chudacoff believed that this had hampered a number of children's cognitive, social, and emotional progression.

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