the role of PLAY for children with disability

A child is said to have a disability when he/she exhibits some limitation in his physical, sensory, cognitive, speech, language, communication or social functions. Such impairments vary in severity, depending on the extent to which core mobility, self-care activities and communication is affected. Statistics have it that about 4% of children in developed countries aged between 0 and 5 years are disabled. The majority of these are boys. Normally, as children develop, they find much joy in playing, either alone or with others. Children’s playing takes different forms, including object, locomotor, pretense, language and socio-dramatic play. For a child with disability, all these forms of play may not be practically possible (Jenvey, 2013).
Children with disabilities have different characteristics, each one unique from the other. Thus, it becomes quite difficult to address them in general, even in this particular topic of play. Researchers have done much study on this topic, mainly looking into the effects of disability in children on play development. They have also attempted to analyze how some physical and social interventions can affect play development in the children (Buchanan & Johnson, 2009).
Play is one vital element in the healthy development of a child. Play is equally important for children with disabilities. First and foremost, it helps create a strong bond between the parent and the child. Secondly, it helps the children to learn in a relaxed environment filled with fun. Play also helps children get attached to the other people surrounding him, say brothers and sisters. Parents should therefore make a serious point of playing with their child so as to improve their relationship with the child and help him through the disability. Many parents have this notion that time spent playing with the children could be used for other worthwhile activities. This mindset should change. Therapists urge parents to give their children that opportunity for play. Most importantly, the parent should play what the child wants, because that is what they are yearning to learn (Doheny, 2010).
As children play, an adult is able to tell how the child understands the physical world, as well as the social world. There are two especially important plays that young children should be encouraged to engage in. These are coordinated symbolic play and replica play (also known as Theme play). Replica play involves children recreating real life situation with toys. For instance, a child may load a toy bus with little dolls, drive the bus to school and let the dolls alight. A child may also load a toy pickup with plastic food, drive it to the market and offload. Such play will instill a sense of sequence in the children, which is vital for their literacy. The adult can creatively apply a number of strategies to increase the effectiveness of replica play. The first thing would probably be to avail high realism toys to the children. These can be sourced from local children toy stores (Frost, Wortham and Reifel, 2001).
The toys should reflect something the child encounters every day so that they can be able to replicate the scenes. Common child experiences include shopping, going to school, house play, snack break at school. These can be replicated with items such as dishes, plastic food, pan, lunch box, and so forth. The adult should arrange them in a creative way for the children because the children themselves may not be able to plan out the theme. Once the child sees the toys, the intended theme will automatically unfold. And that’s the reason for a visually appealing display of the toys to the child (Frost, Wortham and Reifel, 2001).
Another important item for replica play is the “structured toys”. These come with a pre-designed theme that the children find easy to understand. Good examples are the Fisher-Price Garage and Brio Railroad Set. For a child, it is easier to piece up the Brio train tracks together, and then complete with the train and station, as compared to actually building a rail track from basic building blocks. The adult should then assist the child to focus on the play theme. This is mostly done through comments, or rather “talking in the air”, since the adult expects no response from the young one. For instance, the adult may say, “That train is going very fast! I wonder if it will ever stop! The pilot is driving the train so fast. The children are playing happily. The children are taking a rest.” This way, the child stays focused on the play, without the adult directing everything the child does (Frost, Wortham and Reifel, 2001).
The second is coordinated symbolic play, where the child uses an action or object to portray something else. The child may for instance use his biro pen as a toothbrush, or drink imaginary water out of his cupped hands. Such symbolic play skills may never be directly taught to the children. Therefore, a child who engages in symbolic play portrays some advanced level of thinking. The children can also mimic what they see the adults do. The adult therefore ought to be creative and skillful in his own ways. For instance, the adult may use a tiny cube as a jar of mustard and pour it on some plastic hamburger (Frost, Wortham and Reifel, 2001).
A given disability may limit the movements of a child, and thus affect his ability or willingness to play. The child may find it difficult to manipulate materials constructively, or even move to the materials he wants to play with, and therefore the child won’t engage in any meaningful play. This leaves the child without problem solving skills, which mainly comes through trial and error. The non-playing child also is not able to form meaningful relationships. Such cases require an adult to intelligently offer the child guidance and support so that he can actively participate. One way is to use switch adapted materials which the child can easily and readily access (Buchanan & Johnson, 2009).
Delays in cognitive functioning can affect play skills in children. For instance, a parent may have to make numerous attempts to initiate a specific play skill in the child, before the child can independently perform the skill. The parent or caregiver must therefore be patient enough to do such repetitions with toys and other play material. The caregiver may have to support the child hand-over-hand to impart some of these play skills. For a child with cognitive delays, the caregiver will need to use concrete objects that represent the real world. The caregiver should not forget to keep talking throughout the play in a simple language that the child understands, which makes him make sense of what is happening and why. Disabled children may not benefit much from dramatic play due to the level of thinking involved. The caregiver must also understand that such children dwell longer in the exploratory stage before moving on to the next stage. They still follow the normal stages of development expected of every child, but then at a much slower rate (Jenvey, 2013).
A child who cannot communicate well will definitely find it hard to interact and play with the other children. No play means that their social interaction will be so little. The child would naturally want to communicate his or her needs, but this becomes impossible with such speech challenges. The child will therefore not be able to describe or freely express ideas during play time. The adult caregiver must therefore recognize this fact and make an effort to understand the child’s wants and needs even without the little one speaking. The caregiver may try using picture ques as a way to circumvent the speech problems (Jenvey, 2013).
A child with cerebral palsy (CP) may experience great delays in being able to move and explore the surroundings. The child needs to move around so that his spatial understanding of the world may improve. The caregiver in charge of a CP child must assist the child to move, so that his locomotor skills improve day by day. If left alone, such a child may end up greatly unsociable. Such close guidance by the adult makes the child non-time conscious. CP may also go to the extent of affecting the child’s gesture and emotional expression which again limits socio-dramatic play (Jenvey, 2013).
Another form of disability is the intellectual disability (ID). This makes the child experience delays in intellectual functions such as reasoning, learning and problem solving. Children with ID are relative slow in developing play forms. They also do not play that much with the other children. One study confirmed this fact, where children with ID played less than other normal children. It was however noted that they played more when adults left them on their own, and also used more complex language and took part in socio-dramatic play (Jenvey, 2013).
The third form of disability that affects child play is visual impairment. It slows down motor development in children, which subsequently affects their mobility and spatial understanding. Spatial development is normally triggered by the child looking, reaching out for objects and grasping them. This becomes difficult for a child with visual impairment. Instead, they use auditory and tactile cues to locate and grasp objects of interest. These however develop at a later stage in the children, thus causing a delay in the child’s engagement in social play. Blind children can be assisted by motion sensors that give out audible signals. These help the children to explore their environment safely. And since they cannot observe how others react non-verbally to various situations, the visually impaired children tend to develop idiosyncratic facial expressions and gestures (Jenvey, 2013).
Deaf children find it difficult to acquire language skills. This is especially true if no one detects such impairment at an early stage, so as to teach them sign language. Children with hearing disabilities are known to lip read so as to get involved in social play with the other children. This may prove to be challenging especially considering their young age. Deaf children also exhibit delays in gesture because they don’t hear the words that accompany such gestures. The Theory of Mind (ToM) performance implies that oral language and signing can help children to communicate with others. We however do not know how this ToM affects social play in children (Jenvey, 2013).
The multiple disabilities in children mentioned above make it quite difficult for play researchers to draw out conclusions about how each disability affects child play. Delays in play are somewhat generalized for all children with disabilities. There is therefore need for further studies on disabled children, to ascertain how each kind of disability affects child play (Jenvey, 2013).


References
Buchanan, M., & Johnson, T. G. (2009). A Second Look at the Play of Young Children with Disabilities. American Journal of Play, 2(1), 41-59.
Doheny, K. (2010). Playtime for Children with Physical Disabilities. Retrieved October 20, 2018, from https://www.webmd.com/children/features/playtime-physical-disabilities#1
Frost, J. L., Wortham, S. C., & Reifel, R. S. (2001). Play and child development. Merrill, Prentice Hall.
Jenvey, V. D. (2013). Play and Disability. Encyclopedia of Early Childhood Development. Retrieved October 20, 2018, from http://www.child-encyclopedia.com/play/according-experts/play-and-disability