Play Berk's Study

An overview of play

Play, when viewed from a point of study, puts forth many insights about the way in which children think, learn, process and foster connections with the world around them. Play has been linked to children’s cognitive development.

Berk says that play offers children the opportunity to learn about one’s self, about others, and the environment around. Children engaged in play develop many social and emotional concepts which may not be otherwise achieved in other setups. Playing with others helps the children to learn about things like co-operating, respecting others, helping others. Or in the case of make-believe play, which most toddlers engage in, it develops the child’s imagination and allows them to make sense of the real

As little as ten minutes of exercise (including physical play), can improve cognitive abilities. (Beets, M. W.; Pitetti, K. H. (2005)

These researchers did a study and have developed an "exergame" which is a game that incorporates some physical movement but is by no means formal exercise. These games increase one’s heart rate to the level of aerobics exercise and have proven to result in recognizable improvements in mental facultie In this study they use play in a way that incorporates physical activity that creates physical excursions. The results of the study had statistical significance. There were improvements in math by 3.4% and general improvements in recall memory by 4% among the participants of the study.

Mental Play

On the other hand, other research has focused on the cognitive effects of mentally stimulating play. Playing video games is one of the most common mediums of play for children and adults today. There has been mixed reviews on the effects of video games. Despite this, according to a research conducted by Hollis (2014), "[playing video games] was positively associated with skills strongly related to academic success, such as time management, attention, executive control, memory, and spatial abilities – when playing video game occurs in

Much of the research focuses on the influence play has on child social development. There are different forms of play that have been noted to influence child social development. One study conducted by (Sullivan, 2003) explores the influence of playing styles with mothers versus playing styles with fathers and how it influences child social development. This article explains that "integral to positive development is the child’s social competence or, more precisely, the ability to regulate their own emotions and behaviours in the social contexts of early childhood to support the effective accomplishment of relevant developmental