ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the experimental studies that attempting to facilitate young children's associative fluency. It outlines the effects of play and its precursor, exploration, on children's ability to generate creative uses for conventional objects, associative fluency. The chapter describes the associative fluency as a subset of creativity. It discusses the differences between exploration and play. The chapter reviews the studies that used play and/or exploration to facilitate associative fluency. It suggests directions for future research. The chapter provides some insight into the effects of children's exploration and play with objects on their associative fluency. Children in the control condition engaged in conversation about the favorite school activities with the experimenter. The chapter concludes that the exploration questioning technique is a more effective facilitator of associative fluency than a free play treatment because the former has children actively exploring more object attributes in a relatively short period of time.
