Play In Child Development And Psychotherapy

Child psychotherapy is in a state of transition. On the one hand, pretend play is a major tool of therapists who work with children. On the other, a mounting chorus of critics claims that play therapy lacks demonstrated treatment efficacy. These complaints are not invalid. Clinical research has only begun. Extensive studies by developmental researchers have, however, strongly supported the importance of play for children. Much knowledge is being accumulated about the ways in which play is involved in the development of cognitive, affective, and personality processes that are crucial for adaptive functioning. However, there has been a yawning gap between research findings and useful suggestions for practitioners. Play in Child Development and Psychotherapy represents the first effort to bridge the gap and place play therapy on a firmer empirical foundation. Sandra Russ applies sophisticated contemporary understanding of the role of play in child development to the work of mental health professionals who are trying to design intervention and prevention programs that can be empirically evaluated. Never losing sight of the complex problems that face child therapists, she integrates clinical and developmental research and theory into a comprehensive, up-to-date review of current approaches to conceptualizing play and to doing both therapeutic play work with children and the assessment that necessarily precedes and accompanies it.

The Importance of Play in Early Childhood Education presents various theories of play and demonstrates how it serves communicative, developmental, and relational functions, highlighting the importance and development of the capacity to play in terms useful to early childhood educators. The book explicitly links trauma, development, and interventions in the early childhood classroom specifically for teachers of young children, offering accessible information that can help teachers better understand the meanings of children’s expressive acts. Contributors from education, psychoanalysis, and developmental psychology explore techniques of play, how cultural influences affect how children play, the effect of trauma on play, factors that interfere with the ability to play, and how to apply these ideas in the classroom. They also discuss the relevance of ideas about playfulness for teachers and other professionals. The Imprtance of Play in Early Childhood Education will be of great interest to teachers, psychoanalysts, and psychotherapists as well as play therapists and developmental psychologists.

This book is a state-of-the-art look at where toys have come from and where they are likely to go in the years ahead. The focus is on the interplay between traditional toys and play, and toys and play that are mediated by or combined with digital technology. As well as covering the technical aspects of computer mediated play activities, the authors consider how technologically enhanced toys are currently used in traditional play and how they are woven into childrens' lives. The authors contrast their findings about technologically enhanced toys with knowledge of traditional toys and play. They link their studies of toys to goals in education and to entertainment and information transfer. This book will appeal to students, researchers, teachers, child care workers and more broadly the entertainment industry. It is appropriate for courses that deal with the specialized subject of toys and games, media studies, education and teacher training, and child development.

Children are widely celebrated for their imaginations, but developmental research on this topic has often been fragmented or narrowly focused on fantasy. However, there is growing appreciation for the role that imagination plays in cognitive and emotional development, as well as its link with children's understanding of the real world. With their imaginations, children mentally transcend time, place, and/or circumstance to think about what might have been, plan and anticipate the future, create fictional relationships and worlds, and consider alternatives to the actual experiences of their lives. The Oxford Handbook of the Development of Imagination provides a comprehensive overview of this broad new perspective by bringing together leading researchers whose findings are moving the study of imagination from the margins of mainstream psychology to a central role in current efforts to understand human thought. The topics covered include fantasy-reality distinctions, pretend play, magical thinking, narrative, anthropomorphism, counterfactual reasoning, mental time travel, creativity, paracosms, imaginary companions, imagination in non-human animals, the evolution of imagination, autism, dissociation, and the capacity to derive real life resilience from imaginative experiences. Many of the chapters include discussions of the educational, clinical, and legal implications of the research findings and special attention is given to suggestions for future research.

This widely used practitioner resource and course text provides an engaging overview of developmental theory and research, with a focus on what practitioners need to know. The author explains how children's trajectories are shaped by transactions among early relationships, brain development, and the social environment. Developmental processes of infancy, toddlerhood, the preschool years, and middle childhood are described. The book shows how children in each age range typically behave, think, and relate to others, and what happens when development goes awry. It demonstrates effective ways to apply developmental knowledge to clinical assessment and intervention. Vivid case examples, observation exercises, and quick-reference tables facilitate learning.

Research has shown that a child's social and academic success can be greatly influenced by experiences from infancy and toddlerhood. Despite this knowledge, the importance of infant mental health has only recently been recognized. This book is one of the first to present the major models of play interventions with very young children and their families. In this collection of essays by child development experts, the editors provide a comprehensive guide of the most beneficial effects of play therapy and play for the very young. Regardless of the theoretical orientation of the play therapist, this book will help the clinician to conceptualize the worlds of infants and toddlers, and explain the specific play therapy interventions that can be effectively utilized. Contributors address specific therapies from cultures around the world, including caregiver-toddler play therapy, filial play therapy, mother-infant play, and play based interventions with young children with disabilities and autism. This book is essential for students and professionals who work with very young children.

Anything to do with children's entertainment is a source of controversy: children's television programmes, musical preferences, and leisure activities are frequent sources of debate. Toys and play are often singled out for attention, particularly war toys, sex-typed toys, and video games with aggressive themes. Are these harmful to children? Are they addictive? Alternatively, can parents facilitate children's learning with educational toys? Toys, Play, and Child Development explores these and other questions. Parental attitudes and reactions towards war toys are described, as are the children's views themselves. Toys and play are shown to contribute to the development of language, imagination, and intellectual achievement and to be effective in child psychotherapy.