ABSTRACT
The play behaviour between a mother and her child is generally recognized as being critical to the development of the child's skills and capabilities. It appears that it is through the interaction inherent in play that children gain cognitive and affective competence. Despite intuitive clinical judgement as to the problems faced by parents in interacting with their retarded children, little investigation has been directed toward an analysis of what a play interaction involves for children beyond infancy. This chapter investigates the nature of play interaction and, further, quantifies the varying play interaction patterns which are both common and different between mothers and their retarded children and mothers and their normal children in a play situation. There would appear, however, to be some noteworthy differences between mother/ child dyads which warrant further investigation. The problem faced by handicapped child/mother dyads may further be conceptualized as one of operationalization.
