Children at Play Clinical and Developmental Approaches to Meaning and Representation

by Slade, Arietta; Wolf, Dennie Palmer

• ISBN13: 9780195044140
• ISBN10: 0195044142
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1994-01-27
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

As they play, children do more than imagine--they also invent life-long approaches to thinking, feeling, and relating to other people. For nearly a century, clinical psychologists have been concerned with the content and interpersonal meaning of play. More recently, developmental psychologists have concentrated on the links between the emergence of symbolic play and evolving thought and language. At last, this volume bridges the gap between the two disciplines by defining their common interests and by developing areas of interface and interrelatedness. The editors have brought together original chapters by distinguished psychoanalysts, clinical psychologists, social workers, and developmental psychologists who shed light on topics outside the traditional confines of their respective domains. Thus the book features clinicians exploring subjects such as play representation, narrative, metaphor, and symbolization, and developmentalists examining questions regarding affect, social development, conflict, and psychopathology. Taken together, the contributors offer a rich, integrative view of the many dimensions of early play as it occurs among peers, between parent and child, and in the context of therapy.

Table of Contents

Contributors

Affect in Symbolization

Representational Elaboration and Differentiation: A Clinical-Quantitative Approach to the Clinical Assessment of 2- to 4-Year-Olds

The Relation Between Anxiety and Pretend Play

Play, Cure, and Development: A Developmental Perspective on the Psychoanalytic Treatment of Young Children

Constructing Metaphors: The Role of Symbolization in the Treatment of Children

Making Meaning and Making Believe: Their Role in the Clinical Process

Relationships and Symbolization

The Leaving Game, or I'll Play You and You Play Me: The Emergence of Dramatic Role Play in 2-Year-Olds

Self-Other Action Play: A Window into the Representational World of the Infant

Play: A Context for Mutual Regulation within Mother-Child Interaction

Differences and Distortions in Symbolic Functioning

Windows on Social Worlds: Gender Differences in Children's Play Narratives

He's a Nice Alligator: Observations on the Affective Organization of Pretense

Symbolic Development in Children with Down Syndrome and in Children with Autism: An Organizational, Developmental Psychopathology Perspective

Development of Symbolic Play of Deaf Children Aged 1 to 3

Play and Narrative in Inhibited Children: A Longitudinal Case Study

Symbolic Play in the Interactions of Young Children and Their Mothers with a History of Affective Illness: A Longitudinal Study

Index

Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.