Westby 1980 Assessment of Cognitive and Language Abilities Through Play

Assessment of Cognitive and Language Abilities Through Play Carol E. Westby Westby

This article presents a symbolic-play language scale which describes l0 stages in the development of symbolic play abilities and relates the language concepts and structures associated with each developmental play stage. Use of this scale for evaluation and remediation planning is discussed.

Studies of language development during the 1970's have related certain cognitive attainments to certain features of language development (Sinclair, 1969; 1973; Macnamara, 1972; Bloom, 1973; Nelson, 1974; Leonard, 1974; 1978; Beilin, 1975; Moerk, 1975; Bates, 1976; Greenfield, 1978; Ingram, 1978). Although no one-to-one mapping of language onto cognition has been found, some cognitive abilities consistently precede or occur with certain communicative intentions and linguistic structures. Because of this interrelationship between cognition and language, the assessment of a child's language should include the assessment of cognitive level. Formal psychometric tests yield an estimate of some specific skills, but they do not assess all of the cognitive, representational, and thinking skills necessary for the use of language for communicative purposes. T h e majority o f language and visual-perceptual items on the Bayley Scales of Infant Development, the McCarthy Scales of Children's Abilities, and the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised (WISC-R) might be acquired in stimulus-response training. A child from a stimulating home environment, a preschool, or special education program has had training on the tasks presented on these tests, and therefore, when presented with the test items, he/she may have success. The activities on these tests, however, are based on perception of the immediate context a n d generally do not require mental imagery or use of language for reasoning about perception. It is possible for children to obtain above a two year mental level on the Bayley or McCarthy Scales, yet exhibit little or no symbolic behavior which normally emerges by 18 months and is prerequisite for true language. Carol Westby is a language specialist on the Prograrm"for Children Developmental Dis'abilities Team and an assistant pr~[essor for the Department of Communicative Dis'orders at the University ~?fNew Mexico, 2600 Marble Northeast, Albuquerque, New Mexico 87131. 154

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The major cognitive development during the preoperational period (18 months to 5-7 years) is the development of representational thought. Symbolic play provides a means of assessing children's representational abilities and a consistent developmental sequence in symbolic skills has been documented by several investigators (Piaget, 1962; Sinclair, 1970; Fein, 1975; Lowe, 1975; Chappell and Johnson, 1976; Liebergott and Swope, 1976; Garvey, 1977; Nicolich, 1977; Westby, 1977). Although symbolic skills are not sufficient for language development, they are essential prerequisites for meaningful communication (Sinclair, 1970). Language and pretend play both require that a child mentally represent reality. Just as the child must realize that a doll is only a representation of a live baby, or that a piece of paper can serve as a doll's blanket, so must he/she also understand that a word is not the object but only a representation of the object. Language, however, requires more abstraction than symbolic play because, unlike play, words do not resemble reality in any clear way, and in play the symbolizers can be loosely linked together and do not require the structure of the rulegoverned grammatical relationships of spoken language.

Development of the Symbolic Play Scale The Symbolic Play Scale (Appendix A) evolved from a Piagetian based language program for severely retarded and trainable retarded children conducted in special education classes in East Greenbush, New York during the 1976-1977 school year. At that same time, children at the Seton Day Care Centers in Troy, New York were observed in order to obtain information on play development in normal children. From June 1978 to May 1979 normal developmental ages were added to the play scale based upon observations of children at the Christian Child Care Center in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The sequence of play stages was the same for normal and handicapped children. Five groups of toys, arranged in areas within a large room were available to the children: 1. The infant stimulation area included pull toys, windup toys, talking toys (Mattell See 'n Say, talking animals), "busy boxes," musical toys, rattles, push 'n go cars, and soft stuffed animals. 2. The household area included dolls, doll bed, high chair, doll carriage, kitchenette with sink, stove, refrigerator, cooking utensils, cleaning tools, dress-up clothes, small table and chairs, shoeshine kit, doctor's kit, dresser, and telephone. 3. The store area included cash register, vending machine, play money, shopping cart, miniature food, telephone (intercom connected to telephone in house area). WESTBY:

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4.

5.

The creative play area included sandbox, Tonka toys, rubber animals, blocks, doll house, puppets, and several Fisher-Price toys (village, garage, airport, barn). The gross motor area included slide, steps, walking board, riding toys, bowling set, bean bag toss game.

Children were brought into the playrooms individually or in groups of up to four children and were permitted to freely explore and play with any o f the toys. The handicapped children were observed twice a week; the day care children were observed once a week. The observation form in Appendix B was used to record the children's behavior. As one or two adults interacted with the children in the play situation, two observers completed the forms. A separate form for each child was completed for every 5-8 minutes of the play session.

Use of the Play Scale in Cognitive Language Assessment Administration o f the Bayley Scales of Infant Development or the McCarthy Scales o f Children's Abilities provides an estimated developmental age and shortens the time necessary to determine the child's play level. If the children are allowed to choose from all the possible toys, even those children functioning at a 5 year level are attracted to the infant and mechanical toys and will spend long periods of time exploring them. If several hours are available for observation, or if the child can be observed on several occasions, the child should be allowed to explore freely. When evaluation time is limited, however, an estimate of the child's developmental level enables the examiner to present first toys which would be expected to be appropriate for that level. Based upon how the child plays with these toys, the examiner can then present toys for either earlier or later play stages. The session is tape recorded so that the language sample can be analyzed.

Descriptions of the Symbolic-play Stages Stage I. The 9-12 month old child is developing object permanence and will find a toy if it is covered by a scarf. The child displays means-end abilities by locomoting to an object he/she desires or pulling a string to obtain the toy at the end of the string. The child is developing different schemas for different toys and no longer immediately mouths or bangs all toys, but will use a few objects appropriately. Some children use performative vocalizations at this stage (Greenfield and Smith, 1976). These "words" are not labels but are part o f the total activity and are uttered only as the activity is performed. The child vocalizes to request or command (Halliday, 1975). Stage II. The 13-17 month old child explores toys, quickly locates the part 156 Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools

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of the toy that is responsible for its operation (levers, strings, switches, buttons), and attempts a variety o f motor schemas on it (pushing, pulling, turning, pounding, shaking). If he/she is unable to operate the toy, he/she frequently hands it to an adult and waits for the adult to operate the toy. This handing a toy to an adult for operation is termed a protoimperative and indicates that the child understands that adults are agents who can act on objects (Bates, 1976). Some children use single words at this stage, but these words are extremely context dependent and unstable (Bloom, 1973). The child attempts more purposeful communication and uses gestures and vocalizations to request, command, call attention to her/himself, establish interaction, greet, protest, and label (Dore, 1975; Halliday, 1975). Stage III. By 17-19 months the child exhibits the beginning of representational abilities. The child engages in autosymbolic play. He/she may pretend to go to sleep, to drink from a cup, or eat from a spoon. The symbolism is involved with the child's own body and the child's playful manner indicates that he/she is aware that he/she is pretending. The child exhibits all sensorimotor stage VI behaviors. With respect to object permanence, he/she finds a toy hidden invisibly (as when it is placed in a box and the box is emptied under a scarf). He/she exhibits tool-use (attains a toy with a stick), which is critical for language development because language functions as a tool in attaining goals (Bates, 1976). At this time true verbal language begins. A marked growth occurs in the number of words that a child uses (Corrigan, 1978; Ingram, 1978). Among the day care children followed in this project, those who had not been using words for communication began to do so. The words have a variety o f functional and semantic roles (Brown, 1973; Greenfield and Smith, 1976). The child does not refer to absent situations. Children who exhibit autosymbolic behavior but are not speaking may or may not be language delayed. Specific language intervention is not warranted, but the child should be re-evaluated in 3-6 months. Stage IV. By 19-22 months the child extends the symbolism beyond her/ himself to include other actors or receivers of actions. For example, the child will feed the doll the bottle, brush the doll's hair, and cover the doll with a blanket; or he/she will brush his/her mother's hair or the hair of another child as well as his/her own hair and the doll's hair. The child now uses word combinations having a variety of semantic relations. At times the possessive relation appears to predominate when children are in a group ("my truck, my ball, my baby"). No morphological endings occur on words in this stage. The child has consolidated sensorimotor concepts and possesses internalized action schemas which enable him/her to make reference to objects and people not present. Stage V. By 24 months the child pretends at activities o f others. The child re-presents (presents again) his daily experiences. The child plays house and WESTBY:Language AbilitiesThrough Play 157

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is the mommy, daddy, or baby. The pretend toys need to be realistic in appearance and close to life size, not miniatures such as a doll house. True sequences of events are not present, but the child does engage in some selflimited sequences such as putting food on a plate and then using a spoon to feed a doll, or putting food in a pan and stirring it. Sand and water play is limited to filling and dumping containers. Block play is limited to stacking in order to knock down. The child does not build representational structures and blocks are not integrated into pretend play. The child is using short sentences that describe what he/she is doing. Present progressive "ing" markers appear on verbs and plural and possessive word endings may also appear. His/her communicative functions expand to include pretend, sharing information, and questioning, although syntactic question forms may not be used (Halliday, 1975; Ingram, 1978). Stage VI. By 2½ years the child begins to represent events less frequently experienced or observed, particularly those which are impressive or traumatic. With most children this is the doctor-sick child relation. Children who are in school or day care programs may portray teacher-child interactions. The child still requires realistic props. Roles shift quickly and events are still short and isolated. At one moment the child is mommy and the next he/she is in another part of the room playing doctor, without providing much, if any, cue that he/she is changing roles. Children at this stage can use language selectively to analyze perception (Blank, 1978). This enables children to give appropriate syntactic and semantic responses to "who, whose, what, where, what . . . do" questions (Ervin-Tripp, 1970). They are now asking questions and generally do so by placing the "wh" word at the beginning o f a sentence, such as, "Where the bear is?" The child is likely to ask "why" questions, particularly in response to negative statements made by an adult ("don't touch that" or "you can't go outside"), but does not necessarily listen to the response. With the exception of well-known routines ("why is the doctor here?" . . . "baby's sick") the child's answers to "why" questions are inappropriate (Blank, 1975). Parallel play predominates, but associative play appears. Stage VII. The 3 year old child continues the pretend activities of Stages V and VI, but now he/she relates several schemas to one another in a sequence. The child pretends to mix a cake, bake it, serve it, and wash the dishes; or the doctor checks the patient, calls the ambulance, takes the patient to the hospital, and operates. T h e sequence evolves; it is not planned. With a sequence of pretend events the child now has the cognitive basis for using past tense and future aspect, Although the child uses past tense before this time, the earlier past tense verbs were those which referred to a change of state and not to a past event, such as, "opened, fell, broke," but not "walked, ate" (Antinucci and Miller, 1976). The child is still dependent on realistic props. 158 Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools

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The children engage in more associative play with each other, but do not yet exhibit full cooperative play. The normal children in the day care centers began to exhibit compensatory play combinations in this stage. That is, they re-enacted previous events, but with new outcomes--outcomes that appeared to be what the child would have liked to have done in the situation. For example, the child took the doll to the doctor, but the doll hid from the doctor under a blanket. Compensatory play was not observed in the handicapped children even at more advanced play stages. Stage VIII. Shortly after the appearance o f sequence in pretend play, the child begins to carry out play with less realistic toys such as doll houses, Playmobile characters, and Fisher-Price toys such as the village, barn, and airport (3-3V2 years), Blocks are now used for building enclosures to serve as houses, barns, or fences. The child will use one object to represent another (a row of chairs becomes a bus). A marked growth in descriptive vocabulary now occurs as the child becomes aware of perceptual attributes. Ability to play with less realistic toys requires that the child recognize the similarities and differences in the real and pretend objects. In order to determine what can be substituted for the real object, the child must be able to abstract the essential attributes of an object. The child must be able to take context into account when considering the attributes; for example, items are big or little only with respect to the context. Children under the age of three do not use qualitative and size terms in a relative comparative sense, but rather only with respect to themselves (Carey and Considine, 1973). For example, one child picked up a foot long wooden truck and repeatedly attempted to make it fit on the ramp of the Fisher-Price garage which was designed for cars no larger than 2" by 3". He did not appear to recognize that the truck was "too big." Without this cognitive realization, there is no basis for comprehension or meaningful use of size terms in a comparative sense. Associated with the child's ability to play with less realistic toys is the child's ability to take another person's perspective and the metalinguistic ability to think about language and comment on it (Gleitman, Gleitman, and Shapley, 1972). Thus, the child is able to give dialogue to the toys, such as, "The firemen are going to tell the lady to jump. 'Jump lady.' " The frequency of mother-baby play decreases and the child plays with the doll as he/she would a real friend. The doll is given a personality and participates in the play. Stage IX. Up to this stage the child's play has involved representations of events that he/she has experienced or observed. At approximately 4 years of age the child is able to hypothesize about future events and problem-solve events he/she has not experienced. Such hypothesizing requires reference to two future events as in "what would h a p p e n / f . . . ?" For example, a child had built an enclosure for circus animals and wanted a roof for his/her building. In the process of looking for a suitable roof, he/she rejected items which WESTBV:Language Abilities Through Play 159

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were too large, too small, too flimsy, or too heavy without engaging in a trial and error approach o f trying pieces on the structure. Another child reached to pull o f f a blanket that was covering a piano. He/she grabbed the blanket, then looked up to the top o f the piano where several objects were holding it in place. The child's expression suggested that he/she realized that pulling on the blanket would cause the objects to fall on him/her. The child dropped the corner o f the blanket, climbed to the top o f the piano, handed the objects down to another child, and then proceeded to pull the blanket off. Such behavior appears to indicate that the children were conceptualizing ideas that could best be verbalized as "this c o u l d . . , this w o u l d . . , this w o n ' t . . , if I do t h i s , t h e n . . , this is big enough, but it's too heavy." The child begins to verbalize such intentions, future events, and hypotheses by using modals such as "can, may, might, could, would, will," and conjunctions such as "and, but, if, so, because." This is in accord with reports that children begin to reason about perception and use hypothetical statements at four years of age (Blank, 1978; Cromer, 1974). This is only the beginning use o f such modals and conjunctions and does not indicate that the child has full competence with these linguistic concepts. Full competence will not be achieved until 10-12 years of age, or at the beginning o f the formal operational period (Beilin, 1975). The child now builds elaborate three-dimensional block structures and centers his/her pretend play around the structures. Doll and puppet play becomes more elaborate as the child uses the dolls and puppets to act out entire scenes o f "what would happen if." Stage X. The ability to hypothesize future events enables the child to plan out pretend situations in advance. At age five he/she can organize what he/she will require---other children as well as objects. He/she is also able to coordinate more than one event occurring at a time. Thus, the child can plan his/her role and what other children in the play situation will be doing at the same time. For example, a child announces that she will be the mother and while she is cooking dinner, the children will set the table, and the daddy will go to the store. The child is no longer dependent on realistic props and is able to rely on his/her imagination to set the scenes. Full cooperative play occurs at this stage. The ability to plan coordinated sequences of pretend events forms a cognitive basis for use of relative and subordinate clauses to relate two or more propositions to each other. The child makes use of time relational terms such as "then, when, first, while, next, before, after." As with the modals and conjunctions o f Stage IX, the child will be almost 12 years old before she/he develops full competence with such terms (Beilin, 1975). Children can be almost nonverbal and yet exhibit play behavior through Stage IX. Stage X play behavior, however, requires language (either sign or spoken) for the child to effectively organize the situation. 160 Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools

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Interpretation of the Symbolic-play Assessment The symbolic play assessment serves two purposes: (1) determining if a child should be given priority for receiving language remediation, and (2) if language remediation is indicated, determining what communicative functions, semantic concepts, and syntactic structures should be taught. A cognitively based orientation to language acquisition implies that language training can never do more than assist the child in expressing what she/he already understands (Leonard, 1978). It is uncertain if it is possible to influence what the child understands. Procedures for training sensorimotor prerequisites for language and using play experiences as a way o f developing general symbolic skills have been reported (Bricker and Bricker, 1974; Morehead, 1972). If the symbolic play assessment indicates that a child's language level is commensurate with her/his cognitive level, or if her/his cognitive level is at Stage II or below, the speech-language clinician has two options. (1) She/he can choose not to see the child and assume that the child's present environment is providing language stimulation that is appropriate and sufficient for the child's cognitive level. It is unlikely that speech-language remediation would result in significant changes in the child's communication abilities. (2) If the pathologist does choose to work with the child, remediation should provide experiences to facilitate development o f the cognitive sensorimotor or preoperational symbolic abilities rather than emphasizing language skills. If, however, a child's cognitive play level is in advance o f her/his language level, additional speech-language remediation is warranted. The pathologist should begin at the child's language level, and, following a developmental sequence, use both structured remediation sessions and play sessions to develop the necessary language skills. Even with truly language delayed children, however, structured language lessons should not be the primary focus of remediation. Directive adult-led teaching has been shown actually to retard, rather than facilitate, progress (Nelson, 1973). Instead of first teaching semantic concepts and syntactic structures to criterion levels in formal remediation sessions, the pathologist should observe the child in an interactive play setting and model the structures that the child needs for communicating, and then give formal training on those concepts and structures that the child has shown she/he needs. In no evaluation has a child's meaningful use of language been above his/her cognitive play level. A few autistic and hydrocephalic children have exhibited syntactic structures which were above what would be expected considering their play level, but much of their language was echolalic or used in stereotyped, inappropriate ways. WESTBY:

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Summary Decisions regarding linguistic concepts and structures taught to language delayed children are sometimes based on a developmental sequence, and at other times upon what the teacher believes would be most useful for the child to learn. Although semantic concepts and syntactic structures can be trained in a stimulus-response program, unless the child possesses the cognitive prerequisites for the linguistic structures she/he is learning, she/he will not use them in actual interpersonal situations. Assessment of a child's language skills with respect to her/his symbolic play skills provides a basis for determining the language skills that should be taught.

Acknowledgment The original project was made possible by a Title VI mini-grant. The author wishes to thank the teachers at Red Mill School, Seton Day Care Centers, and Christian Child Care Center and the many graduate students who have assisted in the project.

References ANTINUCCI, F. and MILLER, R., How children talk about what happened.J. Child Lang., 3, 167189 (1976). BATES, E., Language and Context: The Acquisition of Pragmatics. New York: Academic Press (1976). BmLm, H., Studies in the Cognitive Basis of Language Development. New York: Academic Press (1975). BLANK, M., Mastering the intangible through language. In D. Aaronson and R. W. Rieber (Eds.), Developmental Psycholinguistics and Communication Disorders. New York: New York Academy of Sciences, 44-58 (1975). BLANK, M., ROSE, S. A. and BERLIN, L. J., The Language of Learning: The Preschool Years. New York: Grune & Stratton (1978). BLooM, L., One Word at a Time. The Hague: Mouton (1973). BRmKER, W. and BRmKER, D., An early language training strategy. In R. L. Schiefelbusch and L. L. Lloyd (Eds.), Language Perspectives-Acquisition, Retardation and Intervention. Baltimore, Md.: University Park Press, 431-468 (1974). BROWN, R., A Firs't Language: The Early Stages. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press (1973). CAREY, S. and CONSIDINE, "]':, The domain of comparative adjectives. Unpublished working paper, MIT (1973). CHAePELL, G. E. and JOHNSON, G. A., Evaluation of cognitive behavior in the young nonverbal child. Lang. Speech Hearing Serv. Schools, 7, 17-27 (1976). CORRmAN, R., Language development as related to stage 6 object permanence development.J. Child Lang., 5, 173-190 (1978). CROMER, R. F., The development of language and cognition: The cognition hypothesis. In B. Foss (Ed.), New Perspectives in Child Development. Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England: Penguin Books (1974). DORE, J., Holophrases, speech acts, and language universals. J. Child Lang., 2, 21-40 (1975). ERVIN-TRIPP, S., Discourse agreement: How children answer questions. In J. R. Hayes (Ed.), Cognition and the Development of Language. New York: Academic Press, 70-107 (1970). FEIN, G., A transformational analysis of pretending. Dev. Psychol., 1 l, 292-296 (1975). GARVEY, C. Play. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University tS-ess (1977). GLEITMAN, L. R., GLEITMAN, H., and SnWLEY, E. The emergence of the child as grammarian. Cognition, l, 137-163 (1972). 162 Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools

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GREENFIELD, P. M., Structural parallels between language and action in development. In A. Lock (Ed.), Action, Gesture and Symbol: The Emergence of Language. New York: Academic Press, 415-445 (1978). GP~ENrIELD, P. M. and SMXTH,J., The Structure of Communication in Early Language. New York: Academic Press (1976). HALLmAY,M. A. K., Learning How to Mean: Explorations in the Development of Language. London, England: Edward Arnold (1975). INGP,AM, D., Language development during the sensorimotor period. In N. Waterson and C. Snow (Eds.), The Development of Communication. New York: John Wiley, 379-389 (1978). LEONARD, L., From reflex to remark. Acta Symbolica, 5, 67-99 (1974). LEONARD, L., Cognitive factors in early language development. In R. L. Schiefelbusch (Ed.), Bases of Language Intervention. Baltimore, Md.: University Park Press, 67-96 (1978). LXEBEROOa"r,J. and SwoPE, S. Play as a base for language acquisition. In F. B. Withrow and C. J. Nygren (Eds.), Language, Materials, and Curriculum Management for the Handicapped Learner. Columbus, OH: Charles E. Merrill, 52-63 (1976). LOWE, M., Trends in the development of representational play in infants from one to three years: an observational study.J. Child Psychol., 16, 33-48 (1975). MACNAMARA,J., Cognitive basis of learning in infants. Psychol. Rev., 79, 1-13 (1972). MO~HEAn, D., Early grammatical and semantic relations: Some implications for a general representational deficit in linguistically deviant children. Papers Reports Child Lang. Dev., 4, 1-12 (1972). MORRIS,E., Piaget's research applied to the explanation of language development. Merrill-Palmer Quart., 21,151-170 (1975). NELSON, K., Structure and strategy in learning to talk. Monogr. Soc. Res. Child Dev., 38 (1973). NELSON, K., Concept, word, and sentence: Interrelations in acquisition and development. Psychol. Rev., 81,267-285 (1974). NICOLICH, L. M., Beyond sensorimotor intelligence: assessment of symbolic maturity through analysis of pretend play. Merrill-Palmer Quart., 23, 89-99 (1977). PIA¢;ET,J., Play, Dreams and Imitation. New York: Norton (1962). SINCLAIR,H., Developmental psycholinguistics. In D. Elkind and J. Flavell (Eds.), Studies in Cognitive Development. New York: Oxford University Press, 315-336 (1969). SINCLAIR, H., The transition from sensory-motor behavior to symbolic activity. Interchange, 1, 119-125 (1970). SINCLAIR, H., Language acquisition and cognitive development. In T. Moore (Ed.), Cognitive Development and the Acquisition of Language. New York: Academic Press, 9-63 (1973). WESTB'¢, C. E., Language training through cognitive assessment. Seminar presented at the New York Speech and Hearing Convention, Rochester, N.Y. (1977) and poster session presented at the annual Convention of the American Speech and Hearing Association,.Chicago, Ill. (1977). Received May 29, 1979 Accepted October 8, 1979

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A p p e n d i x

A

Symbolic Play Scale Check List Language

Play Stage I - 9 to 12 m o n t h s Awareness that objects exist w h e n not seen: finds toy h i d d e n u n d e r scarf Means-end behavior - crawls or walks to get what he wants; pulls string toys Does not m o u t h or b a n g all toys - some used appropriately

i __

No true language; may have p e r f o r m a tive words, (words that are associated with actions o r the total situation)

Exhibits following communicative functions: _ _ Request (instrumental) C o m m a n d (regulatory)

Stage II - 13 to 17 m o n t h s Context d e p e n d e n t sir~gle words, for example, child may use the word "car" when riding in a car, but not when he sees a car; words tend to come and go in child's vocabulary

Purposeful exploration o f toys; discovers operation o f toys t h r o u g h trial and error: uses variety o f motoric schemas Hands toy to adult if unable to operate

Exhibits following communicative functions: _ Request _ _ Protesting __ Command _ _ Label _ _ Interactional _ _ Response _ _ Personal Greeting

_

Stage III - 17 to 19 m o n t h s __Autosymbolic play, for example, child p r e t e n d s to go to sleep or pretends to drink from cup or eat from spoon _ _ Uses most c o m m o n objects a n d toys appropriately _ _ Tool-use (uses stick to reach toy) Finds toys invisibly h i d d e n (when placed in box and box e m p t i e d u n d e r scarf)

Beginning o f true verbal communication. Words have following functional and semantic relations: __

__ __

Recurrence Existence Nonexistence Rejection Denial

__

Refers to objects a n d persons not present

_

_

__ __ __

Agent Object Action or state Location Object or person associated with object or location

Stage IV - 19 to 22 m o n t h s Symbolic play extends beyond the child's self: Plays with dolls; brushes doll's hair, feeds doll a bottle, o r covers doll with blanket Child p e r f o r m s p r e t e n d activities on m o r e than one person or object; for example, feeds self, a doll, mother, and a n o t h e r child Combines two toys in p r e t e n d play, for example, puts spoon in pan o r pours from pot into cup

164

Beginning o f word combinations with following semantic relations _ _ Agent-action Action-locative Action-object Object-locative _ _ Agent-object Possessive _ _ Attributive _ _ Dative

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A p p e n d i x

A

(cont)

Symbolic Play Scale Check List Language

Play Stage V - 24 m o n t h s Represents daily experiences; plays house - is the m o m m y , daddy, or baby; objects used are realistic and close to life size __Events short and isolated; no true sequences; some self-limiting sequences puts food in pan, stirs, and eats __Block play consists o f stacking and knocking down _ _ Sand a n d water play consist o f filling, pouring, and d u m p i n g

Uses earlier pragmatic functions and semantic relations in phrases and short sentences T h e following morphological markers appear: _ _ Present progressive (ing) o n verbs _ _ Plurals _ _ Possessives

Stage VI - 2Y2 years Represents events less frequently experienced o r observed, particularly impressive or traumatic events __

Doctor-nurse-sick child Teacher-child Store-shopping Events still short and isolated• Realistic p r o p s still required• Roles shift quickly.

R e s p o n d s appropriately to the following W H questions in context: What __ Who _ _ Whose __ Where _ _ W h a t . . . do Asks W H questions - generally puts W H at b e g i n n i n g o f sentence Responses to why questions inappropriate except for well-known routines, such as, "Why is the doctor here?" . . . "Baby sick." _ _ Asks why, but often inappropriate and does not attend to answer

Stage VII - 3 years _ _

Continues p r e t e n d activities o f Stages V a n d VI, but now the play has a sequence• Events are not isolated, for example, child mixes cake, bakes it, serves it, washes the dishes; or doctor checks patient; calls ambulance, takes patient to hospital and operates. Sequence evolves • . . not planned. C o m p e n s a t o r y toy . . . re-enactment o f e x p e r i e n c e d events with new outcomes Associative play

_ _

_ _

Uses past tense, such as, "I ate the cake . . . I walked." Uses future aspect (particularly "gonna") forms, such as, " I ' m g o n n a wash dishes."

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Appendix

A

(cont)

Symbolic Play Scale Check List Play

Language

_ _ C a r r i e s out play activities of previous stages with a doll house and Fisher-Price toys (barn, garage, airport, village). _ _ Uses blocks and sandbox for imaginative play. Blocks used primarily as enclosures (fences and houses) for animals and dolls Play not totally stimulus bound, Child uses one object to represent another. Uses doll or puppet as participant in play

Descriptive vocabulary expands as child becomes more aware of perceptual attributes. Uses terms for the following concepts (not always correctly): shapes sizes

Stage

VIII

- 3 to 3½

Colors

__

texture spatial relationships Gives dialogue to puppets and dolls Metalinguistic language use, such as, "He said . . . " Uses indirect requests, such as, "Mommy lets me have cookies for breakfast." Changes speech depending on listener

Stage IX - 3½ to 4 years _ _

_ _

Begins to problem-solve events not experienced. Plans ahead. Hypothesizes "what would h a p p e n i f . . . " Uses dolls and puppets to act out scenes Builds 3-dimensional structures with blocks which are attempts at reproducing specific structures child has seen.

Verbalizes events:

_ _

intentions and

possible future

Uses modals (can, may, might, will, would, could) Uses conjunctions (and, but, if, so, because) Note: Full competence for these modals and conjunctions does not develop until 10-12 years of age Begins to respond appropriately to why and how questions that require reasoning about perception

Stage X - 5 years

__

Plans a sequence of pretend events. Organizes what he needs - both objects and other children. Coordinates more than one event occurring at a time Highly imaginative. Sets the scene without realistic props, Full cooperative play

_ _

166 Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools

Uses relational terms (then, when, first, next, last, while, before, after) Note: Full competence does not develop until 10-12 years of age

XI

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154-168 July 1980

Appendix B Observation Form Onlooking

Solitary

Parallel

Associative

Cooperative

09

E

=,

~9

WESTBY:Language Abilities Through Play 167

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Appendix

C

Definition of play behaviorsfor the observationform Practice

- - T h e child engages in gross motor activities such as running,

Symbolic Imitauve

riding on bikes or wagons, climbing, throwing balls. Child works puzzles, strings beads, stacks blocks and knocks them down, fills and empties containers, operates cause-effect toys such as music boxes, "busy" boxes, talking toys, etc. - - T h e child engages in pretend play, but it is initiated and guided by another child or an adult.

Symbolic Spontaneous

- - T h e child initiates the pretend activity.

Game

- - T h e child engages in rule-governed game behavior and exhibits some understanding or appreciation of the rules.

Onlooking

- - T h e child observes, but does not participate.

Solitary

- - T h e child plays without reference to other children.

Parallel

T h e child's play is of a companionable nature with similar materials, but with no personal interaction.

Associative

- - T h e children's play is loosely organized around a common activity, shared interests, and materials.

Cooperative

- - T h e play includes different roles, common goals, usually with one or two leaders, and is of relatively long duration and complexity.

T h e observers using the forms record a description of the child's behavior within the appropriate box on the form. If a child engages in several different behaviors during a recording time, the behaviors are sequentially numbered.

168

Language,Speech, and Hearing Servicesin Schools

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154-168 July 1980

Assessment of Cognitive and Language Abilities Through Play Carol E. Westby Lang Speech Hear Serv Sch 1980;11;154-168

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