ABSTRACT
Sara Smilansky’s (1968) research on disadvantaged children in Israel was a landmark study. She claimed that dramatic play (sociodramatic play) and games with rules provide the most opportunity for cognitive development. Dansky and Silverman (1973) tested the notion that play furthers a measure of creativity known as associative fluency. They measured 4-to 6-year-old children’s ability to form associative elements into new combinations that met certain task requirements. One group of subjects was allowed to play with a particular set of objects, another was asked to engage in an equivalent amount of imitative behaviour with the same objects, and a third group was shown the objects but given experiences that did not involve contact with them. The study found that the subjects in the play configuration produced significantly more non-standard responses for every object than subjects in either imitation or control conditions. Later work by the authors suggests two important principles: first, play creates a set, or attitude, to generate associations to a variety of objects, whether or not those objects are encountered during the play activity, and second, make-believe is one form of play that contributes to the enhancement of associative fluency.
