Nonsocial Play in Preschoolers: Necessarily Evil?
Kameth H. Rubin
University of Waterloo
RUBIN, KENNETH H Nonsocial Flay in Preschoolers Necessarily Evil? CHILD DEVELOPMENT,
1982, 53, 651-657 It has been suggested that children who play on their own, without interacting with peers, may be at nsk for social, cognitive, and social-cognitive problems Recently,
however, the children's play hterature has revealed that some forms of nonsocial activity are
constructive and adaptive In this study the social, cognitive, and social-cogmtive correlates
of nonsocial play were examined 122 4-year-olds were observed for 20 mm dunng free play
They were also administered a role-takmg test and tests of social and impersonal problemsolvmg skills Sociometiic popvdanty and social competence (as rated by teachers) were also
assessed Analyses indicated that nonsocial-functional (sensonmotor) and dramatic activities
generally correlated negatively with the measures of competence Parallel-constructive activities
generally correlated positively with the various measures of competence
In recent years, it has been suggested that
children who play on their own, vwthout frequently interacting with peers, may be at nsk
for later social and social-cognitive problems
These suggesfaons stem from both theoretical
and empirical sources Theoretically, Piaget
(1926, 1932), in his early work, noted that the
reciprocal nature of peer relations and the inevitable social conflicts concemmg diflFenng
viewpoints in early childhood promoted the development of moral judgmental, discursive, and
perspective-taking skills (see Rubm & Everett
[m press] for a recent review of this hterature)
From non-Piagetian perspectives, peers have
been thought to serve as social leammg models
and as social remforcers m the development of
social and cognitive skiBs (Allen 1976, Combs
& Slaby 1978, Hartup 1979) Given these theoretical perspecbves, developmentalists have recently predicted negative outcomes for children
who have had madequate peer mteractive experiences
Indirect empincal support for these theoretical positions emanates from the hterature
concerning sociometnc measures of peer acceptance Poor sociometnc ratings m early and
middle childhood have been shovwi to predict
later social, educational, and mental health
problems (Cowen, Pederson, Babigian, Izzo, &
Trost 1973, Ro£F, Sells, & Golden 1972, Ullman
1957) However, direct support for the theoretical positions has been nuxed, at best At present, there is a notable lack of data to suggest
that low rates of peer mterachon m early childhood either predict or concurrently relate with
indices of soaal and social-cogmtive competence (Asher, Markell, & Hymel 1981) Moreover, low rates of peer interaction m early childhood have been found to correlate negatively
with peer populanty m some studies ( e g ,
Goldman, Corsmi, & deUnoste 1980) but not
m others ( e g , Gottman 1977)
One possible explanation for the general
lack of data supportive of the position that nonsocial activity correlates negatively with mdices
of social competence emanates from the observational hterature concemmg children's play
Rubm and his colleagues (Rubm, Maiom, &
Homung 1976, Rubin, Watson, & Jambor 1978)
have indicated that between 402 and 60% of the
nonsocial activity of presdiool- and kmdergarten-aged children is constructive or educational
in nature Given these data, it may be that the
earlier reported correlations between nonsocial
behavior and measures of populanty and social
competence were somewhat obscured by mclusion of particular adaptive cognitive forms of
play within the nonsocial categoncal system
From this perspective it is conceivable that
some forms of nonsocial activity are concur-
This research was supported by a grant from the Ontano Mental Health Foimdation and
the Ontano Ministiy of Commumty and^ Social Services An abbreviated version of this article
was presented at the Bienmal Meetme of the Society for Research m Child Development,
Apnl 1981, Boston I would Uce to thadc Judy Midde for her help in the collection and codmg
of^the data Special thanks are also given to the teachers and children m the Regional Mumcipahty of Waterloo who graciously made their time available to me Requests for repnnts
should be sent to Kenneth H Rubm, Department of Psychology, Umversity of Waterloo,
Waterloo, Ontano, N2L 3G1
\PluU Devdepmtnt, 1982, S3, 651-657 ® 1982 by the Soaety for Reseaicfa in Child Development, Inc
All nghta reserved 0009-392O/82/53O3-0O22$OI 00)
652
Child Development
rently predicbve of developmental lag whereas
others are equally predictive of posibve adaptation Such a suggestion would be in keeping
with the Asher et al (1981) posibon that the
simple use of rate of nonsocial acbvity to identify children at nsk would be less mentonous
than the use of a quahtative assessment of nonsocial behavior for identification purposes
The purpose of this study was simply to
identify those forms of nonsocial play m 4-yearolds which correlate either positively or negabvely with assessments of competence m the
social, social-cognitive, and cognitive domains
In particular, it was hypothesized that the incidence of nonsocial-funcbonal (or sensonmotor) play, that is, repetibve muscle movements
with or without objects (Smilansky 1968), because of its relatively low cognibve play status
for 4-year-olds (Rubin, Fem, & Vandenberg, in
press), would correlate negabvely with markers
of soaal, social-cogmbve, and cognitive development Similarly, since most dramabc or fantasy play of 4-year-olds is earned out in small
groups (Rubin et al, m press), it was predicted that the incidence of the sociaDy less
mature form of dramabc activity (i e , nonsocial-dramatic play) would correlate negatively
with assessments of social, social-cognibve, and
cognibve development Construcbve play ( e g ,
artwork and puzzle and block construcbon) is
often earned out most proficiently when alone
Moreover, this adaptive behavior is the most
frequent form of play generally observed m
preschool settmgs (Rubin et al, m press)
Given this {)erspecbve, it was predicted that
the incidence of nonsocial forms of constructive
pky would correlate positively with the latter
measures of competence Fmally, it was predicted that the madence of unoccupied and onlooker behavior, two of Farten's (1932) least
mature forms of social parbcipation, would correlate negabvely with assessments of social, social-cognibve, and cognibve development
Method
Subjects
Fifty-three male and 69 female 4-year-olds
(M = 58 11 months, SD = 4 37 months) who
attended preschools or day-care centers m a
southwestern Ontario community served as subjects in this study Familial socioeconomic status ranged from lower-middle to upper-middle
class
Instruments and Procedures
Behavtoral observations—Each child was
observed for a total of 30 min dunng free play
following procedures similar to those described
m Rubm et al (1976, 1978) Basically, each
child was observed for six 10-sec bme intervals
each day over a 30-day penod Behaviors were
coded on a checklist which included the cogmtive play categories of Smilansky (1968), tiiat
IS, functional-sensonmotor, construcbve, and
dramabc play and games with rules The cognitive play categones were nested withm the
social participabon categones earber descnbed
m Parten (1932), that is, sobtary, parallel, and
group activities Thus, for example, if a given
child was observed to construct a puzzle m
close proxirmty but not with another child, the
activity was coded as parallel constructive
Other observabonal categones included unoccupied behavior, onlooker behavior, reading or
being read to, rough-and-tumble play, exploration, acbve conversabons with teachers or peers,
and transitional (moving from one acbvity to
another) activities
After coding the child's play behavior, the
observer noted the names of the focal child's
play or conversational partners and who it was
that lnibated the group activity FoUowmg Furman, Rahe, and Hartup (1979), the affecbve
quahty of each social interchange was coded as
positive, neutral, or negative
Four observers recorded the children's
play behaviors Each observer was tramed by
using videotapes and observmg children's play
in a laboratory preschool not employed m the
present study Rehabihty was assessed by pairing each observer with every other observer for
a total of 30 mm of observational coding each
The number of coding agreements/ (number of
agreements -f- disagreements) exceeded 85% m
each case
Soctometrtc populartty—The sociometnc
rating scale recently developed by Asher, Singleton, Tinsley, and Hymel (1979) was employed in this study Each child was mdividually presented with color Polaroid photographs
of each of his or her classmates The cmldren
were asked to assign each picture to one of
three boxes on which there was drawn either a
happy face ("children you hke a lot"), a neutral
face ("children you kmda hke"), or a sad face
("children you don't hke") As m Asher et al
(1979), cluldren thus received a number of
positive, negative, and neutral rabngs Posibve
ratmgs were accorded a score of 3, neutral
ratings a score of 2, and negative ratings a score
of 1 Each child received one total rabng score
Since the numbers of children m each of the
eight classrooms vaned, the rabng score re-
Kenneth H. Rubin
ceived by each child was divided by the number of children m each class who were given
the sociometnc test
Social-competence —Two teachers m each
of the classrooms were given the Behar and
Stnngfield (1974) Preschool Behavior Questionnaire (PBQ) to fill out High scores on the
PBQ are suggestive of social maladjustment
The teacher ratings m each class were averaged
for each child
Role taktng and social problem solving —
Cognitive role-takmg skill was measured by admmistenng the DeVnes (1970) "hide the penny" game to each child The expenmenter and
child took turns hiding a coin m one of his or
her hands Each child was scored according to
the recursive thought cntena described by DeVnes The maximum score was 10
Social problem-solving skill was assessed
by admmistermg an elaborated version of Spivack and Shure's (1974) Preschool Interpersonal Problem-Solving (PIPS) test to each child
The Social Problem-Solvmg Task (SPST) was
designed to assess both quantitative and qualitative features of social problem solving In general, each child was presented with a senes of
eight pictured problem situations m which one
story character wants to play with a toy or use
some matenal that another child has in his or
her possession The child was asked what the
central character in the story could do or say
so that she or he could gam access to the toy or
matenal The characters m the story vaned with
regard to either age (same vs different age
characters), sex (same vs different sex characters), and race (same vs cross-sex characters)
For example, with regard to the three agerelated picture stones, in one case two 4-yearold, same-sex, same-race characters were portrayed In a second picture, sex and race were
held constant, and trie subject was told that a
4-year-old wanted to play with an object in the
possession of a 6-year-ola In the third case, the
4-year-old wanted a toy being played with by
a 2-year-old Similar covanations occurred for
the sex and race of the story characters Detailed examples of the stones may be obtamed
from the author
After presentation of each picture and the
assoaated story* the child was asked to tell the
expenmenter everything that the central character could do or say so that she or he could
obtain the desired object As m the PIPS (Spi-
653
vack & Shure 1974) the number of relevant alternatives was computed
Impersonal problem solving —^An elaboration of Smith and Dutton's (1979) lure retneval problem was administered to each child
An extended descnpbon is found m Cheyne
and Rubin (Note 1) Each child was seated
at a low table on which was placed a set of
sticks and blocks Each set consisted of three
24-cm, three 15-cm, and three 6-cm sbcks and
five blocks with four holes The expenmenter
pointed out that the sbcks were of different
lengths and demonstrated the mserbon of a
stick into one of the holes m a block The child
was allowed to play with these materials for 8
mm Durmg this penod, the expenmenter kept
a conbnuous record of the child's play constructions and his or her verbahzabons Constructions were coded as simple, moderate, or complex (Cheyne & Rubin, Note 1), and the number of each type of construction was noted
From these observations a measure of configural complexity was computed by subbactmg
the number of simple constructions from the
number of moderate plus complex construcbons
(Cheyne & Rubin, Note 1) The number of fantasy ( e g , rocket ships, people) construcbons
was also recorded Following this penod, all
children were immediately presented with six
sticks (two of each length), a block, and the
problem of retnevmg a marble enclosed m a
transparent box placed at a distance from the
child The solubon mvolved the joining of the
two longest sticks by means of the block, releasing a latch on the box, and raking m the
marble Although hints in the manner of Sylva
(1977) were given at approximately 1-mm mtervals (to a maximum of five hints), the major
dependent vanable for impersonal problem
solving was ttme to solution Dunng the problem-solving penod, the number of posibve selfstatements ("I can do it'") and the number of
denials ("I can't do it", "I don't wanna do it")
were also recorded
Receptive vocabulary —The Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test was administered to each
child Mental age (MA) was computed
Results and DiBcussion
A correlation matnx was computed for the
vanables descnbed in the Methods secbon
Pnnciple correlations of interest herem mcluded
those with each of the nonsocial behavior cat-
1 Full descnpbons of the instruments and scormg procedures are available from the author
on request
654
Child Developinimt
egones, that is, so&iary-functional, -constmcbve,
and -dramatic play, poraZfei-functional, -constructiye, and -dramatic play, and unoccupied
and onlooker activity Those correlations which
reached (p < 05 or better, one-tailed) or approached significance are reported m table 1
Perhaps the least mature form of play produced by 4-year-olds in preschool settmgs is
that which is earned out alone and mvolyes sensorunotor, repetitive motor acbons (Rubm et
al, m press) Sohtary-functional play was found
to correlate negatively with MA, r(121) =
19, p < 02 Wrth the efiFects of MA partialed
out, the frequency of solitary-functional play
was negatively correlated with (a) the number
of social overtures received from other children,
(b) the proportion of positive interactions to
the total number of social interactions, (c) the
number of peer cwiyersations, (d) the sociometnc rating, and (e) the mdex of construction
complexity computed during the "play phase"
of the impersonal problem-solvmg paradigm It
should be noted that complexity of object construction during play is a significant predictor
of problem-solving proficiency (Cheyne & Rubin, Note 1) Taken together, these correlational data suggest that the production of a
large amount of sohtary-functional play by 4year-olds may be taken as an "at-nsk" indicator
The incidence of sohtary-constractive play
was negatively correlated with (a) the number
of social overtures received and (b) the number
of peer conversations held during free play
Given the lack of significant correlations with
either the peer sociometnc ratings or with the
teacher ratings of social competence, this category would appear to be somewhat benign and
certainly less negatively tinged than sohtaryfunctional activity
When fantasy or dramatic play occurs in
4-year-olds it is usually carried out with or near
other children That is, the "norm" for this age
group IS the production of social rather than
nonsocial dramatic play (Rubm et al, in press).
As such, solitary-dramatic play at 4 years of age
may reflect a lag m those social, cognitive, and
social-cognitive skills usually associated with
pretense activity, that is, perspective-takmg and
problem-solvmg skills Given this speculation, it
IS noteworthy that the frequency of sohtarydramatic play was negatively related with chronological age (CA) even within this restricted
age-range sample Sohtary-dramatic play was
also negatively correlated with (a) the prc^rtion of positive group interactions to the total
number of social interactions, (b) performance
on the DeVnes (1970) perspective-taking task,
(c) soaometnc status, and (d) the measure of
TABLE 1
PARTIAI. CORRELATIONS BETWEEN NONSOCIAL PLAY CATEGORIES
AND OTHER MEASURES, CONTROLLING FOH MA {N = 123)
Sol-F
Reading
Conversations
Rough and tumble
Transitional
Social initiations
received (N)
Proportion positive
interactions
Proportion neutral
interactions
Proportion negative
lnteracUons
CA
DeVnes
Soaometnc
Relevant categones
(SPST)
Complexity
Fantasy constructions
Denials
Time to solution
Teacher rating total
So!-D
Sol-C
- 11
- 48*
04
13
-
05
35*
11
02
- 30*
- 23**
P-F
PC
02
08
01
21**
09
02
P-D
On
Un
- 26**
- 02
- 10
- 07
10
- 30*
19***
06
03
- 14
- 06
- 10
- 09
11
11
- 16***
11
09
- 18***
13
- 07
13
12
11
- 05
- 09
- 18***
- 06
- 22**
- 03
- 09
06
- 07
04
21**
- 18*** - 07
- 22** - 03
- 16*** - 08
03
03
- 06
- 05
- 13
- 06
- 15***
- 15*** - 10
21***
- 23**
- 05
06
04
12
01
- 01
05
- 16*** 09
- 14
05
-
- 01
16*** _
06
16*** -
11
16***
09
01
03
03
14
- 07
15***
01
-
- 02
- 25**
- 21**
10
17*** - 12
03
i9»*»
03
11
04
- 06
- 05
01
15***
03
08
15*** - 03
- 02
10
20*** - 09
06
13
07
06
12
19***
15***
18***
18***
12
-
03
20***
10
02
-
12
26**
- 01
13
08
- 32*
NOTE —Sol — sohtaiy, P — i>anllel. On •• unoccujMed, On — onlooker, F — ftinctumil, C — comtnictive, O — dramatic
• # < 001 (fflie-Ualed)
**p< 01
***p< 05
Kenneth H. Robin
construcbon complexity made dunng the "play
phase" of the impersonal problem-solvmg task
The latter measure has been viewed as a significant precursor to the solubon of the impersonal
problem presented herein (see Cheyne & Rubm. Note 1) Sohtary-dramatic play was posibvely correlated with teacher ratmgs of social
maladjustment A positive correlabonal trend
was found with the amount of time it took to
complete the impersonal problem-solvmg task
(p < 06) Given the data above, it would appear as if the mcidence of sohtary-dramatic
play m 4-year-olds is a concurrent mdex of lack
of competence in the social, social-cognibve,
and cognibve domams For play enthusiasts, the
message may be that not all pretense acbvity
augurs well for 4-year-olds Given the correlational nature of these data, however, firm causal
statements concenung sobtary pretense cannot
be made
Parallel-funcbonal acbvity, or repebbve
motor acbvity in close proximity to others, was
found to correlate posibvely with (a) the frequency of transitional (or moving from one activity to the next) behaviors, (fc) the proportion of negabve mteracbons to the total number
of social mteracbons, and (c) the measure
of play construction complexity The picture
pamted by such acbvity is diat it involves sensonmotor, usually large-scale, frenebc motor behavior that bnngs children mto conflicts, as
evinced by the posibve correlabon with negative mteractions The posibve correlabon with
transitional activity suggests the possibility that
the two behaviors may be taken as a classroom
index of lmpulsivity Given the negabve correlation between parallel-functional play and the
construcbon of complex play figures/objects
(which appears to require planmng, reflection,
and self-regulabon), the nobon of parallel-funcbonal acbvity as a behavioral index of lmpulsivity IS not farfetched Further research would
do well to explore this postulated hnk directly
Interesbngly, neither teacher nor peer ratings of social competence or popularity were
negabvely linked to such potenbally disturbmg
behavior m the classroom It might be worthwhile to note that the correlabon between parallel-funcbonal acbvity and the number of posibve sodometnc rabngs from same-sex peers
was, m fact, moderately significant m the negabve direcbon, r(121) = — 15, p < 05 As
such, the production of parallel-funcbonal play
m 4-year-olds may very caubously be taken as
an mdicator of problemabc social development
Parallel-constnicbve behavior appears to
655
resemble those acbvities that elementary school
teachers promote m their classrooms Moreover,
it IS the most frequently occumng activity observed m prescbool setbngs (Rubm et al, m
press) Typically, the children sit m close proximity, often around the same table, and carry
out art, LEGO-block, puzzle, or other creative/
construcbve acbvibes As one might expect
from this descnpbon, teacher ratmgs erf social
maladjustment were significantly and negabvely
correlated with the frequency of parallel-constructive play (with the effects of MA parballed
out) The incidence of this acbvity was also
linked significantly and posibvely with MA
With the effects of MA parbaled out, the frequency of parallel-constnicbve play was negabvely correlated with the mcidence of roughand-tumble play and with the amount of time it
took to solve the impersonal problem Posibve
correlabons were evmced for (a) sociometnc
ratmgs, (b) the number of relevant altemabves
produced on the social problem-solvmg task,
and (c) the measure of play construcbon complexity Taken together, diese correlabonal data
suggest that children who play near but not
with others and who engage m construcbve activities are good problem solvers in both the
social and nonsocial domains Such children are
also viewed as popular among their peers and
as socially skilled by their teachers
Parallel-dramatic acbvity occurs when children take on roles in close proximity to but not
in coordinabon with their peers. Suoi uncoordinated pretense may result from the child's mabihty to take into account the various roles
and social rules ostensibly mvolved m sociodramatic activity (Garvey 1977, Rubin et al, m
press) Given this perspective, it was not surprising to find a significant negabve correlabon
between the producbon of parallel-dramabc
play and GA
Although the themes of pretense activity
were not coded m this study, it would have
been mteresbng to note whether fantasy behavior conducted near but not with others is
more likely to take on hostile/aggressive than
domesbc or less rambunctious themes Performance of such acbvity m proximity to but not
with others could serve as a safeguard m ascertaining that one's peers understand that the hostihty displayed is not meant hterally or that it
IS "just pretend " Clues about the themes of parallel-dramabc play are drawn from the posibve
correlations with teacher ratmgs of social maladjustment as well as with tiie mcidence of
rough-and-tumble play Moreover, the emission
656
C3iild Devdopment
of parallel-dramatic play was negatively correlated with positive social exchange and yet not
correlated with negative interactions Interestingly, the frequency of such dramatic activity
was correlated with the production of fantasy
objects ( e g , guns) and people durmg the
stick-block play session of the impersonal problem-solvmg task The data thus suggest that
parallel-dramatic play, although not viewed as
desirable by teacliers, may be an appropnate
medium for hostile displays m the preschool
Unoccupied behavior was positively related with teacher ratings of social maladjustment and negatively correlated with the number of peer conversations Onlooker activity
was negatively correlated with MA, r(121) =
- 18, p < 03 With the effects of MA partialed out, onlooker behavior was negatively
correlated with (a) CA, (b) the number of
peer conversations, (c) rough-and-tumble play,
(d) complexity of play constructions, and (e)
teacher ratmgs of social maladjustment In
short, the more often that children spent their
tune harmlessly observing others or looking at
objects around the room, the greater the hkelfliood that they were younger mentally and
chronologically than their counterparts who
displayed less such behavior Onlookers were
viewed also as relatively soaally competent by
then- teachers As such, onlooker behavior may
be viewed as a somewhat benign "Charhe
Brown''-type activity
The correlational analyses computed for
males and females separately did not vary significantly from those data presented above Interestmgly, the DeVnes measure of role taking
correlated negatively with sohtary-function^
play for girls, r = — 28, p < 02, but not for
boys Alternatively, this social-cognitive measure correlated negatively with onlooker behavior for boys, r = — 32, p < 03, but not for
girls These negative correlations with behavioral mdices of nonsocial play do make sense
theoretically However, the sex differences
elude convement explanation at this time No
other sex differences were found m the separate
correlational analyses
In summary, the observational data reported herem support the recent contention that
qualitative rather than quantitative dimensions
of nonsocial activity be explored when children
are targeted as "at nsk" for developmental problems (Asher et al 1981) Some nonsocial activities ( e g , sohtary-functional, sohtary-dramatic,
and parallel-functional play) do, mdeed, correlate negatively with mdices of social, soaal-
cognitive, and cogmtive skdl Other forms of
nonsocial activity ( e g , soLtary-constructive,
onlooker behaviors) are somewhat benign Parallel-constructive play IS highly predictive of
competence
To some degree, these latter data nicely
mirror those of Jennings (1975), who reported
that preschool children who show greater onentation to objects rather than people spend much
of their time constructing products m their
play, purportedly as a result of such activity,
they perform well on tests of abibty to organize
and classify physical matenals The paraDelconstnictive play correlations reported herein
support Jennmgs's findings Moreover, the present study also suggests that parallel-constructive
players perform well, not only on impersonal
problems but also on social problems Furthermore, such nonsocial activity was associated
with peer populanty and teacher ratings of social competence These data clearly indicate
that not all nonsocial activity is associated with
negative developmental prognosis Grven the
lack of an overall negative correlational picture
for nonsocial but constructive forms of play, it
would thus behoove researchers and practitioners not to denigrate all forms of nonsocial
activity Psychologists and educators who plan
preschool intervention programs to amehorate
social play "deficits" or to prevent the supposed
negative outcomes of nonsocial activity in early
childhood would do well to focus on those behaviors found to be concurrently correlated
with assessments of social, cognitive, and social-cognitive lag
Reference Note
1
Cheyne, J A, & Rubin, K H Playful precursors of problem-solving m preschoolers Paper presented at the Biennial Meeting of the
Society for Research m Child Development,
Boston, April 1981
References
Allen, V Chddren as teachers New York Academic Press, 1976
Asher, S R , Markell, R A , & Hymel, S Identifying children at nsk m peer relations- a cntique of the rate-of-mteraction approach to
assessment Child Vevdopmera, 1981, 52(4),
123&-1245
Asher, S R , Singleton, L C , Tuisley, B R , &
Hymel, S A reliable sociometnc measure for
preschool children Developmental Psychology, 1979, 15, 443-444
Behar, L , & Strmgfield, S A behavior rating scale
Kenneth H. Rubin
for the preschool child Development^ Psy-"
chology, 1974, 10, 601-^10
Combs, M L , & Slaby, D A Social skills traimng
with children In B Lahey & A Kazdm
(Eds ), Advances in chnictd chdd psychology
Vol 1. New York Plenum, 1978
Cowen, E L , Pederson, A , Babigian, H , Izzo,
L D , & Trost, M A Long-term follow-up of
early detected vulnerable children Journal of
Constdtmg and Clinical Psychology, 1973, 41,
438-446
DeVnes, R The development of role-taking as reflected by the behavior of bnght, average, and
retarded children m a social guessing game
ChUd Devdopmera, 1970, 4 1 , 759-770
Furman, W , Rahe, D F , & Hartup, W W Rehabihtation of socially withdrawn preschool children through mixed-age and same-age sociallzabon Child Development, 1979, 50, 915922
Garvey, G Play Gambndge, Mass Harvard University Press, 1977
Goldman, J A , Corsmi, D A , & deUnoste, R Imphcations of positive and negabve sociometnc
status for assessmg the social competence of
young children Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 1980, 1, 209-220
Gottman, J M Toward a definihon of social isolation in children Chdd Development, 1977,
48, 513-517
Hartup, W W Peer relabons and the growth of
social competence In M W Kent & J E Rolf
(Eds ), Primary prevention of psychopathology Vol 3. Social competence tn children
Hanover, N H University Press of New En^and, 1979
Jenmngs, K D People versus object orientation,
social behavior, and mtellectual abihties m
children Developmental Psychology, 1975, 11,
511-519
Parten, M B Social participation among preschool
657
children Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 1932, 27, 243-269
Piaget, J The language and thought of the chdd
London Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1926
Piaget, J The moral judgment of the child Glencoe. III Free Press, 1932
Roff, M , Sells, S B , & Golden, M M Socud adjustment and personality development m chddren Minneapolis Umversity of Minnesota
Press, 1972
Rubm, K H , & Everett, B Social perspecbvetaking m young children In S Moore & C
Cooper (Eds ), The young chdd Vol 3
Washington, D G National Association for
the Education of Young Children Pubhcabons,
m press
Rubm, K H , Fem, G G , & Vandenberg, B Play
In E M Hethenngton (Ed ), Handbook of
chdd psychology Vol 3 Social develojnnent
New York Wiley, m press
Rubm, K H , Maiom, T L , & Homung, M Free
play behaviors m middle- and lower-class preschoolers Parten and Piaget revisited Chdd
Development, 1976, 47, 414-119
Rubm, K H , Watson, K , & Jambor, T Free-play
behaviors in preschool and kindergarten children Chdd Development, 1978, 49, 534-536
Smilansky, S The effects of sociodramatic play on
dtsadvantaged preschool chddren New York
Wiley, 1968
Smith, P K, & Dutton, S Play and traimng m
direct and innovative problem solving Chdd
Development, 1979, 50, 830-836
ack, G, & Shure, M B Social adjustment m
young chddren Jossey-Bass, 1974
Sylva, K Play and learmng In B Tizard & D Harvey (Ekls ), The btdogy of piay London
SIMP/Hememann, 1977
Ullman, G H Teachers, peers, and tests as predictors of adjustment Journal of Educational
Psychology, 1957, 48, 257-267