ABSTRACT
James led me by the hand to a mirror where we could both see ourselves easily and smiled up at me through his reflection. ‘Look Mama!’ he squealed in delight, ‘Click here if you want me to read you the story and click here if you want to play in the story.’ His voice was robot-like in tone as he pointed in turn to the lower left side and lower right side of the mirror as he offered the choices. For James, the rectangular shape of the mirror represented the computer screen, as he acted out the start-up instructions at the beginning of his make-believe CD-ROM storybook. This scenario marked James’s discovery of a new object to transform for use with computer-based dramatic play. One of the defining characteristics of dramatic play (also called socio-dramatic play) is a child’s transformations of objects and use of role-play to act out stories they invent (Christie, 1991). James transformed the mirror into a computer screen, and he became the CD-ROM storybook operating from within the computer by altering his voice and using the language typical of the software.
