Types, Stages, and Skills of Play
Written by Sarah Snider, MA, CCC-SLP
Why is learning during play so important?
“Play is often talked about as if it were a relief from serious learning. But for children, play is serious learning. Play is really the work of childhood.”
Fred Rogers, aka Mr. Rogers
Well, there are several reasons:
A child’s language often develops during play and helps a child gain new words. There’s less pressure and frustration during play, as compared to asking for something like a drink of water or help with getting a certain pair of socks.
During play, there is a shared topic. For some kids, it might be Elsa and Anna from Frozen; for others, it may be the fire station and firemen.
Play and games often have types of roles and an order of events (that may vary). This is just like grammar in English. When a child learns the concepts of event sequencing and defined roles in play situations, their understanding of these big ideas can more easily extend to daily routines, early reading, and talking about events from their own lives.
Play has turn-taking, just like conversation. This social skill will be important for the rest of their lives!
The number of sequences in play often is related to the complexity of a child’s speech. So if a child is using one word at a time, their play is often very short, such as a car going down a ramp, playing peek-a-boo, or flipping pages in a book. As their language develops, their play may also grow. For instance, if a child is using three word sentences, you might see play where the child gets a baby doll, feeds it, then pushes it around in a stroller. So if you foster growth in play, it’s likely that you’re helping your child grow in their communication as well.
Play Development
At first, play is very concrete. It’s all about what’s here and what’s happening right now.
However, as children mature and their thoughts (and language) become more complex, then children expand their play. Children can play many different ways. These include:
Child playing with abacus. Photo by luis arias.
Functional: banging blocks, hitting pots & pans, filling and emptying a container with water
Constructive: building a tower out of blocks, using play doh to create a pizza or cupcake
Pretend: pretending to feed a doll or stuffed animal, driving a toy car for a grocery “pick up”
Stages of Play
Before a child starts engaging with toys or other items, they may start with unoccupied play, where they discover how their own body moves through wiggling their arms, hands, legs, and feet.
Within these types of play, children may play independently, where the child plays without regard to their surroundings. This might include a child stacking blocks while the other children are playing tag.
Children then may move to an onlooker stage, where they watch other kids play.
Then, children may use parallel play, where children may be playing next to each other but not actually playing together. This might look like stacking their own tower or each child feeding their own doll.
During associative play, children are playing together but there often isn’t a shared goal or theme. One child might be cooking dinner for the baby while the other child is playing restaurant.
As children get older, generally around the age of three, we often see more cooperative play, where everyone is working together on a common theme and outcome (e.g., cooking and serving food in a play restaurant).
Toddlers building stick tent. Photo by Markus Spiske.
All types of play are important and an older child may move through the different types. For instance, a child may move to an independent or parallel play stage when building Legos, even when they are well past the expected age for cooperative play development.
This is totally okay - everybody likes to do activities all by themselves sometimes!
Tips for Caregivers
For parents/caregivers, knowing what stage of play your child is in and the type of play can help you support your child’s language skills. Some tips:
Young children during constructive or functional play: mirror your child’s actions (parallel play). How does your child respond?
When is your child most receptive to you engaging in play? For some children, they prefer to play independently at times, like right before their nap. Building language skills at that time may not be the most productive because they are winding down.
Watch and wait: What types of play does your child prefer? What pretend scenario are they immersed in? What are they doing and/or talking about? Take a moment to observe your child’s play. This may help you gain some clarity on how to support them in a way that caters to their interests.
Talk with a speech-language pathologist about how to best support your child during those activities and ways you might support your child by adding new activities.
