The Benefits of Dramatic Play in Cognitive and Creative Developments

The earliest years of life are some of the most important in a person's life. Childhood is a time of physical, mental, emotional, and social development. There are many factors that help contribute to these developments such as a nutritious diet, nurturing, emotional support, and physical activity, especially play. Playing is a very important part of childhood and can be beneficial to the development of the child and is the focus of my discussion. First, I will describe the four different types of play; second, I will argue the beneficial effects of dramatic play on cognitive and creative skills by presenting the significant findings of two correlation studies as well as their limitations.

Scientists have observed and analyzed numerous types of play that children engage in. The most widely used categories of play are the four types proposed by Sara Smilansky (1968): functional play, constructive play, dramatic play, and play with rules (Smith, 1986; Fromberg, 2006). The first of these, functional play, is categorized by simple and repetitive muscle movements that the child does, "the main goal of which is the movement of an object" (Fromberg, 2006). Examples of this include play where the child moves a car back and forth, shakes a rattle, bangs a toy, etc. This type of play is common in younger children, typically in the time between birth and two years of age. Functional play helps develop the child’s motor skills and hand-eye coordination (Smith, 2003). It also helps children discover how their movements affect what is around them and they learn to use their bodies to do things. However, one of the problems, as proposed by Pellegrini and Smith (1998) in Blades (2003), is that functional play does not necessarily ha...

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