AN INVESTIGATION OF THE EFFECTS OF FORMS OF IMAGINATIVE PLAY ON LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT AND LANGUAGE COMPREHENSION IN YOUNG CHILDREN

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of symbolic play treated as a mediator for increasing language comprehension and facilitating oral language growth. The study included two aspects of language: language comprehension and language development. The three independent variables were: (a) forms of play, (puppet action, body action, abstract action and control); (b) age, (five and seven year old children); and (c) sex, (male and female). The dependent measures for the language comprehension section were the students' absolute scores from the: (a) cloze comprehension measure and the (b) ten-item comprehension question measure. The dependent measure for the language development section was the students' connected discourse scored t-units. The subjects for the study were 160 five (80 - 40 males, 40 females) and seven (80 - 40 males, 40 females) year old children from a rural, middle-class central Pennsylvania community. The results of pre-assessment language measure showed no significant main effect between boys and girls among treatment groups and indicated no significant interaction effects between the factors of age, sex, and treatments. After listening to a tape-recorded story, the children practiced the story content according to the treatment group to which they were assigned. After the treatment condition, the language comprehension and language development measures were completed. The major significant findings in this study were: (1) On the cloze measure of language comprehension: (a) seven year olds received significantly higher mean correct scores than five year olds; and (b) children in the body action group received significantly higher mean scores than the abstract action and control groups. (2) On the question measure of language comprehension: (a) seven year olds received significantly higher mean correct scores than five year olds in the abstract action and control groups; and (b) five year olds in the puppet action and body action groups received significantly higher mean scores than the five year olds in the abstract action and control groups. (3) On the t-unit measure of language development the seven year olds received significantly higher mean scores than the five year olds.