Efficiency of Play Therapy in Early Childhood Education

This study focuses on the efficiency of play therapy in early childhood education and its impact on child functioning. It explores the use of Play Therapy Observational Instrument and measures the outcome of child functioning through various criteria. The research aims to recognize the coexisting legitimacy of Child-Initiated Pretend Play Assessment (ChIPPA) in relation to the Penn Interactive Peer Play Scale (PIPPS) and its importance in social capability and socio-emotional development of children. The study also examines the social competence of children through the use of standardized approaches like ChIPPA and PIPPS. The findings suggest a positive correlation between pretend play and social competence, highlighting the effectiveness of play therapy in enhancing social skills in children.

Running head: EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION
EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION
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1EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION
In this study, the researcher has focused on the efficiency of play therapy for better
functioning of child (McAloney & Stagnitti, 2009). Play Therapy Observational Instrument is
an example of play therapy. Different measuring criteria was developed to measure the
outcome of child functioning, which includes sociometry measure, behavioural measures,
personal anxiety measure and academic measure. Play therapy was considered as a valuable
approach to understand the meaningful and complex activity of a child (Bergen, 2015). The
primary objective of this research paper was to recognize the coexisting legitimacy of Child-
Initiated Pretend Play Assessment (ChIPPA) in relative to the Penn Interactive Peer Play
Scale (PIPPS). The coexisting legitimacy of play therapy in accordance by means of
communal peer play is considered as the important aspect of social capability and socio-
emotional development of the children. Play therapy has been acknowledged worldwide as an
effective approach for developmentally deferred, behaviourally maladapted and abused
children. Hence, the degree of socializing and activity of the children with fellow children’s
are of a great interest for the researcher to observe as a play therapist (Clark, 2014). Social
competence shows the children capacity to adapt or adjust in the social environment. The
major goal of play therapy method in this research learning was to improve the degree of
social competency in children. The major research question generated for this research study
that how a child’s performance in play therapy or play assessment will relate to their social
peer play (McAloney & Stagnitti, 2009).
In order to measure the social competence of children, the researcher in this study
used a standardized approach known as “Child-Initiated Pretend Play Assessment” (ChIPPA)
to evaluate the capacity of the child using controlled interaction with another tool known as
PIPPS to observe the competency of the children peer play (Kottman, 2014). The researchers
compared the outcome from both the tools to evaluate the competency of child relating to
imaginative play i.e. the child who scored good in imaginative play are similarly competent

2EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION
enough in social interaction. In this analysis, the researcher used 53 children as samples from
four different pre-schools of different socio-economic areas of Melbourne, Australia (eastern
suburbs). 32% of the children were from low socio-economic area, 46% were from medium
socio-economic area and 22% were from higher socio-economic area. The sample included
19 girls and 34 boys in between the age of 4 years 3 months to 5 years 9 months (McAloney
& Stagnitti, 2009). Two major instruments were used in this study namely The ChIPPA and
The PIPPS. ChIPPA assess items such as the ‘Number of Imitated Actions’ (NIA),
‘Percentage of Elaborate Pretend Play Actions’ (PEPA) and ‘Number of Object
Substitutions’ (NOS) (Marshall et al., 2015). The investigator grounded on their observation
of the children play behaviour accomplishes PIPPS scale determining the strength of the child
social play. The data from after assessment was analysed using the version 14 of Statistical
Package for Social Sciences (SPSS). Based on the score obtained in each item of ChIPPA and
PIPPS, a descriptive statistics was performed followed by t-test to determine any difference
in social competence based on the age of the children. The researcher observed no such
difference (McAloney & Stagnitti, 2009).
Positive correlation was detected in this study between all PEPA scores of ChIPPA
and play interaction. Hence, the study established that a child who is playing with orthodox
toys have higher chances to socialize with fellow children by permitting them to frequently
discuss among other children in order to establish a settlement regarding in what way the play
must be proceeded. The findings proved that the ability of children’s’ pretend play is related
to their respective social competence (McAloney & Stagnitti, 2009). Hence, play therapy is
considered as the effective treatment method in children for enhancing their social
competence by analysing their behaviour and understanding.

3EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION
References
Bergen, D. (2015). Psychological approaches to the study of play. The Handbook of the study
of play, 51-69.
Clark, K. M. (2014). Play therapy: A comprehensive guide to theory and practice. Guilford
Publications.
Kottman, T. (2014). Play therapy: Basics and beyond. John Wiley & Sons.
Marshall, K., Wood, G., Read, J. C., Yarosh, S. L., Balaam, M., & Lee, J. J. (2015, April).
Supporting children to engage in play for wellbeing. In Proceedings of the 33rd
Annual ACM Conference Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing
Systems (pp. 2445-2448). ACM.
McAloney, K., & Stagnitti, K. (2009). Pretend play and social play: The concurrent validity
of the Child-Initiated Pretend Play Assessment. International Journal of Play
Therapy, 18(2), 99.