ABSTRACT
Attitudes about the role of the teacher in children's play have undergone a dramatic change in the past several decades. The children's teachers were first shown how to use several types of play training. Play training has been found to result in gains in a variety of variables, including IQ scores, creativity, perspective taking, and language development. Most play training procedures have focused on sociodramatic play, an advanced form of symbolic play in which groups of children plan and carry out cooperative dramatizations. Modeling was one of the procedures used in the Smilansky study. Variations of this procedure were also used in many subsequent play training studies. Verbal guidance was the other type of training used by Smilansky. Thematic-fantasy training was developed by Eli Saltz and James Johnson for use in a series of play training studies. The purpose of imaginative play training is to enhance children's make-believe skills so that they can play more imaginatively and creatively.
