ABSTRACT
This chapter explains discussion of infant and children’s play emphasizing Piaget’s research and theory. It takes up sociodramatic play which makes extensive use of language and imagination, and provides clear connections with dominance and other social relations. Social development refers to the changing ways infants and children interact with other persons as they mature. Piaget divides the practice of the rules into four stages. The first stage, which can be called that of ritualized schemas, describes the typical behavior of infants in the sensory-motor stage and children in the first period (1- to 4 years). The second stage, which describes the typical behavior of children in the second period of the preoperational stage, is called egocentrism. The third stage, which Piaget calls cooperation, characterizes the play of children between 7 and 10 years of age. In the fourth stage, interest in rules for their own sake, problems of the third stage, are solved.
