ABSTRACT
Newborn babies enter the world with a range of reflexive behaviors, such as orienting, sucking, and startle responses. But they have no knowledge of the world they encounter. It is largely through their playful transactions with people and objects that they gain information about physical and social aspects of their environment. The onset of pretend play, however, by no means signals the end of visual exploration and manipulative investigation. Infants also are most likely to play with objects that are reactive in some way to their manipulation. As children move into the preschool years, their manipulative exploration expands into a variety of forms of sensory and motor play. With the cognitive advances which usher in the second year of life, children spend a large amount of time in mastery play as they impose an increasing degree of order on their world by identifying, comparing, and categorizing objects and events.
