ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the ontogeny of locomotor, object, social, and pretend play, and also examines possible functions of each. It discusses only exercise play as it is characteristic of school-age children. However, we find that when children explore objects in preschool classrooms, they tend to do so in solitary contexts and it does not attract their peer's attention. The chapter examines the role of play in human development, concluding that some forms of play have immediate benefits, others, deferred benefits, and some both immediate and deferred. It speculates the ways in which play might be beneficial, both during the juvenile period as well as later, impacting phylogenetic development. The possible benefit of play, relative to adult-directed strategies, is that behaviours generated in the context of play can be more innovative and most suitable to the varied niches inhabited by humans. More generally, play is a relatively low cost and low risk way to learn new behaviours during periods of immaturity.
