Child Play

Child play is a child’s natural method for expressing, interacting, and learning. It is the primary language of children and showcases their symbolic understanding of the world in which they live and engage. Child play organizes children’s experiences and encourages their understanding of the world through their exploration of objects, language, social roles, and feelings. Play is intrinsically motivated, spontaneous, and noninstrumental, and happens at all times across all situations. Play serves as the primary communication mode for children, given their language and cognitive development structures. Whereas adults communicate primarily through verbalization, play allows children to express their experience at a concrete level through objects and figures. Child play is person dominated in that the child directs and creates the play experience. Given these defining ...