Running Head: DRAMATIC PLAY SKILLS 1

Development of Dramatic Play Skills

Kathleen Lucchesi

Fresno Pacific University

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Development of Dramatic Play Skills

Alex is a three-year old neurotypical child. She is very mild-mannered and social, but her

timid behavior has lead her teacher to believe she may has some cognitive deficiencies or

behavioral disorder. During an observation of her dramatic play skills and development, Alex

showed a great number of strengths. Alex is capable of engaging in pretend play by herself or in

a group, on more than one occasion retiring to solidarity to play with a tea set on her own. She is

very interested in pretend play with objects such as telephones, and often uses object substitution

to pretend that something like a block is a phone while she speaks into it. She was observed

mimicking routines that she sees every day, such as putting a baby to bed or feeding a baby from

a cup and a bottle.

While her pretend play in role playing with objects is strong, she lacks some of the skills

associated with plot development or language and scripting necessary to fall into her appropriate

age range. Alex assign roles to other children or take roles on her own and does not understand

the concept of pretending to be another person. At one point, a student initiated a bout of acting

like a dog, crawling around on the floor, and Alex was non-responsive and confused. Her play,

while willingly social, does not seem to have any obvious theme. While some children were

involved in games like firefighters or families at a store, Alex remained in pretend play with her

preferred props. The role-playing game area is spread across multiple age ranges with the older

groups typically involving themselves in developed plots of peril or danger. It is not expected of

Alex that she will engage in all of these behaviors at once, but her lack of any skills in role

playing does signal a need for educator support.

Alexs development presents itself as spanning multiple developmental phases. Her

strengths lie mostly in the two to three-year-old play range. Alex is entirely lacking the ability to
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take on or assign a specific role to herself or other children. One way to develop the

understanding of the concept of role playing for Alex would be to include her in role playing as a

silent participant. Instead of waiting for Alex to choose to be a doctor or a mother, another

student can pretend and include her in their game. In example, a fellow student or teacher can

wear a stethoscope and put it up to Alexs heart and tell her about all the thing she is hearing and

how they are writing her a clean bill of health. Alex may just need more exposure to the concept

of pretend play in order to achieve this milestone.

Another tactic for developing Alexs ability to immerse herself in pretend play would be

games involving puppets. A hand puppet is an easy way for a child to feel in control of their

body and see that the puppet is still a toy, but a toy they can control and act for. This activity

would allow Alex to jump successfully from moving a toy to moving her whole body while

playing make believe. The concept of taking on a role may need to be modeled physically with

puppets before she can make the logical connection.

Alex would also benefit from a simplified game like charades where children act out a

role-playing scenario for others to guess. Something interesting and exciting like a superhero role

might elicit involvement from the otherwise shy child. Some of her class mates with more

developed skills can begin the game and respond when the teacher begins to guess what they are

pretending to be, not only modeling the rules of the game for Alex, but also giving her a chance

to participate when she understands. Alexs demeanor must be considered when trying to

understand her slightly below average dramatic play skills, as it is possible to conclude that Alex

is simply less mature than her other classmates and will catch up to their play level with due

diligence from her educators and her peers.

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References

Beaty, Janice J. (2006). Observing Development of the Young Child (8th ed.). Columbus, Ohio:

Pearson Merrill Prentice Hall.