Toddlers’ emerging symbolic play: a first‐born advantage?

Abstract

The influence of older peers on younger children’s emerging symbolic play was examined for 24 young children in eight participating long‐day child‐care centres. Toddler participants (aged from 17 to 31 months) were observed and video‐taped in three conditions in free play in the outdoor environment as follows: condition one, with their same‐age peers; condition two, with their older, preschool‐aged peers; and condition three, in a dyad situation with a familiar often ‘self‐chosen’ preschool‐aged peer. Fourteen of the participants were first‐borns and 10 were later‐borns. The toddlers’ symbolic play was coded in the four dimensions of symbolic play (‘decontextualization’, ‘thematic content’, ‘organization of themes’, and ‘self–other relationships’) in accordance with Westby’s (1991) ‘Symbolic play scale’. First‐born participants exhibited higher levels of symbolic play in all four dimensions as identified by Westby (1991) in mixed‐age free play sessions. Additionally, in mixed‐age free play, first‐borns scored significantly higher in three dimensions in the most frequently occurring levels of symbolic play than did later‐born participants.

Keywords:

• Symbolic play
• Pretend play
• Toddlers
• Daycare’ Mixed‐age groups
• Older peers

Notes

* Corresponding author: Institute of Early Childhood, Macquarie University, Australia.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Helen S. Kowalski *

* Corresponding author: Institute of Early Childhood, Macquarie University, Australia.