What Play Teaches Us

Children may need to be taught how to play Play, in its many forms, contributes to our development. It provides opportunities to use imagination and to be creative. Through play there is the potential to explore the natural world, to extend all aspects of language and to build upon existing social communication skills.

Turn-taking, sharing, negotiating, making compromises, the understanding of concepts like fairness and even learning to say ‘no’; the potential of play as a vehicle for learning is infinite.

Liz Beavan, headteacher of Riverside School, a community special school, explains what play teaches us and its important role for children with special education needs.

Play and children with special educational needs

It’s easy to see the benefits of play for all children including those with special needs who may have difficulty accessing learning, communicating and understanding the world around them. The value of play cannot be underestimated, so it won’t surprise you to learn that play is used extensively by speech and language therapists and occupational therapists and is becoming an increasingly important vehicle for teaching and learning.

As a teacher, working with children with special educational needs, it becomes apparent that many of the children with whom we work experience difficulty accessing play. Developmentally, the play of a child with special needs may differ from that of the typically developing child and some children may find the social dimension or aspects of play problematic.

How does a child get into a game with other children?

And, once in on the ‘act’, how is the active involvement maintained? There is no simple answer, but what we believe is, to deny a child the opportunity to develop play is denying them the ‘wealth’ of learning opportunities that the typically developing child experiences and is so fundamental to development.

How can we begin to ‘teach’ play to children whose play is different?

Many practitioners have, for a very long time, recognised the need to explore ways to enable children with special educational needs to access the diverse range of play opportunities available to typically developing children. We have adopted, adapted and used a number of these in our school.

Many children, who find learning difficult, benefit from doing an activity many times over, until the idea is learnt and well established in their minds.

Using this idea of repeating an activity many times over to make sure a child has the opportunity to learn a play scenario so, we have used the idea of ‘playscripts’. A playscript is a ready-made written account – the story that provides the language to move the play forward. The playscript lets the person leading the play revisit that play scenario over and over again until the child is confident. We have found that children, once they have learnt the script, will then take the lead in the play and, eventually, build upon it.

A playscript can be as simple as:

Duck (explore duck)
Duck in water (place duck in bath of water)
Splash, splash, splash!! (‘bob’ the duck up and down in the water)
Duck out of water (lift duck out of the water and place on side)
Finished.

Or they may be complex, for example guiding the child through a play scenario which involves a man falling from a boat and being rescued by a helicopter.

Play scripts are written to match the learning and language level of the child at a particular stage in his or her play development.

When teaching children using an approach like identiplay with its associated playscript we always introduce the idea in a quiet area away from other children. When the child is using the idea confidently, we then use the same idea in different parts of the play area or classroom. The adult eventually will not be involved in the play and the child, we have found, is usually able to play alongside or with, friends.

Last word!

Play is exciting; it provides opportunities for all children to build upon their existing skills and knowledge while developing the essential social communication skills necessary for group learning.

Importantly, play should be fun!

Liz Beavan is currently Head teacher of Riverside School, a community special school for children from 3-11 with a range of special needs including MLD and autistic spectrum difficulties. Her enthusiasm and passion for play have been channelled into a book to help parents of children with special needs help their children benefit from all that play offers.

'Teaching play to children with autism - practical interventions using Identiplay' - (The publisher chose the title!!) A Lucky Duck Book, published by Paul Chapman Publishing - ISBN 978 - 1 - 4129 - 2894 – 6.

In the book, Liz uses the idea of identiplay to provide parents and practitioners with a wide range of playscripts and ideas for activities to support the development of children’s play.

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