The Relationship between Play Repertoire and Inhibitory Control in Preschool Children

摘要

Numerous studies argue that inhibitory control could be successfully enhanced in play activities during preschool age. Previous studies showed that fantasy significantly associated with inhibitory control and cognitive flexibility. It was also shown that inhibitory control is related to symbolic play (imagination of absent objects, attributing imaginary properties to objects, accepting the role). The primary aim of the current study was to investigate the association between children's play repertoire and inhibitory control in preschool age. Two research questions were addressed in this study. First, we hypothesized that reducing play activity to one favourite play and character could be associated with poorer inhibitory control, probably due to decreasing variability of roles, actions, possible choices. Second, we hypothesized that play duration correlates with the level of children's inhibitory control performance: the more time is devoted to role-play, the higher the level of inhibitory control would be. Participants were 228 children aged 6-7 years. Child's play preferences and play duration were examined with a parental questionnaire. Results indicate that children who had a favourite play were significantly more impulsive while dealing with the tasks which required inhibitory control. A similar result was obtained in the analysis of how having a favourite character relates to the inhibition process: a group of children who had favourite characters showed significantly lower score of inhibition control than groups of children who had no favourite characters or had multiple ones. This study did not show any significant differentiation among groups of children with different play duration per day. These findings contribute in several ways to our understanding of the relevance of play in terms of inhibitory control development.