Describe the benefits of make-believe play

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Answer: Today, many researchers believe that play not only reflects but also contributes to children’s cognitive and social skills. Research reveals that preschoolers who devote more time to sociodramatic play are rated by observers as more socially competent a year later. And make-believe predicts a wide variety of cognitive capacities, including executive function, memory, logical reasoning, language and literacy (including story comprehension and storytelling skills), imagination, creativity, and the ability to reflect on one’s own thinking, regulate emotions, and take another’s perspective.
Critics, however, point out that the evidence just summarized is largely correlational, with too many studies failing to control all factors that might alternatively explain their findings. In response, play investigators note that decades of research are consistent with a positive role for make-believe play in development and that new, carefully conducted research strengthens that conclusion. Furthermore, make-believe is difficult to study experimentally, by training children to engage in it. Besides alterations of reality, true make-believe play involves other qualities, including intrinsic motivation (doing it for fun, not to please an adult), positive emotion, and child control.
Finally, much make-believe takes place when adults are not around to observe it. For example, an estimated 25 to 45 percent of preschoolers and young school-age children spend much time creating imaginary companions—special fantasized friends endowed with humanlike qualities. Yet more than one-fourth of parents are unaware of their child’s invisible friend. Children with imaginary companions display more complex and imaginative make-believe play; more often describe others in terms of their internal states, including desires, thoughts, and emotions; and are more sociable with peers.