Date Presented 04/04/19
An occupation-based assessment tool is needed to support therapists in their assessment of how parents’ behavior impacts how their young children's play. The usefulness of the Parent's Caregiver Support of Young Children's Playfulness (a new assessment tool) for identifying how parents' behavior influences their children's playfulness, was examined through a mixed-methods study.
Primary Author and Speaker: Amiya Waldman-Levi
Additional Authors and Speakers: Laurette Olson
Contributing Authors: Sherraine Grinon
BACKGROUND: A child’s environment nurtures or restricts a cycle of learning and development. Playful interactions draw a caregiver and child towards each other in positive ways and therefore, time spent in playful interaction with a responsive caregiver may be a developmental asset, whereas time missed in these experiences may be a detriment (Daunhauer & Cermak, 2008). Since young children’s central occupation is play and this commonly involves parents, it is critical that occupational therapists (OTs) who work with young children acknowledge the centrality of parent child play to the development of children through routinely including it as part of the OT assessment to intervention process as needed.
In order to support OTs considering parent-child play in their OT assessment and intervention process, reliable, evidence-based occupation-based assessment tools are needed. The aims of this mixed-methods study were to study how useful a new tool, Parent’s Caregiver Support of Young Children’s Playfulness (PCSYCP) was in identifying the impact of mothers’ behavior on their children’s playfulness.
METHODS: A cross-sectional mixed-methods design study gathered both quantitative and qualitative data. 32 mothers and their typically developing children were observed during 15-minutes joint play followed by an open-ended interview. Measures used to analyze joint play were: PCSYCP (Waldman-Levi & Bundy, 2016; Waldman-Levi, Sheils, Bundy, & Olson, 2017), Test of Playfulness (ToP; Skard & Bundy, 2008), and the Environmental Supportiveness Assessment(TOES; Skard & Bundy, 2008). Data analysis included correlational statistics of quantified data and qualitative analysis of eleven parent interviews.
RESULTS: Recruitment resulted in a sample of 32 mother-child dyads predominantly Caucasian, married women with a college level of education, and an average age of 33.8 years (sd= 4.7). Children’s age ranged from 12 months to 56 months, M=28.8 months (sd= 13.8), of which 14 were males (47%) and 16 were females (53%). Quantitative analysis: all mothers in this study were supportive of their children’s play; children were relatively playful and mothers provided them with a supportive play environment (TOES and PCSYCP, r = .37, p < 0.05). The total scores of child’s playfulness and mother’s support did not correlate, but individual items of each scale did significantly correlate and presented a rich correlation matrix. For instance, we found that the more frequently that a mother supported her child’s engagement in the process of overcoming obstacles by negotiating and praising, the less playful behavior her child appeared. It appeared that children with a high level of decision-making behavior had mothers who supported their engagement in a process-oriented play, encouraged transitions between play frames, supported sense of safety, use of objects, pretend and mischief play qualities. Qualitative analysis: mothers reported that the joint play observed represented how they typically play with their child, but as they reflected upon the play that just occurred and their prior experiences, they identified differences that provided further insights related to their experiences of playing with their children.
CONCLUSIONS: Assessing co-occupation in joint play is valuable to OTs working with families of young children. Findings suggest the quality of maternal support of a child’s playfulness was positively related to how playful child was and was more important to document than the frequency of the behavior’s occurrence. The PCSYCP shows promise as an assessment tool and interviewing mothers about their play experiences with their child anchors quantified information in a meaningful context.
References
Daunhauer, L.A. & Cermak. S. (2008). Play Occupations and the Experience of Deprivation. In L.D. Parham & L.S. Fazio (Eds). Play in occupational therapyfor children. (2nd ed.), pp 251- 261. C.V: Mosby, Inc.
Skard, G. & Bundy, A.C. (2008). Test of Playfulness. In L.D. Parham & L.S. Fazio, Play in occupational therapy for children (2nd edition), pp. 71-93. St. Louis: Mosby, Inc.
Waldman-Levi, A. & Bundy, A. (2016). A Glimpse into co-occupations: Parent's support of young children’s playfulness scale. Occupational Therapy in Mental Health. doi:10.1080/0164212X.2015.1116420.
Waldman-Levi, A., Sheills, M., Bundy, A., & Olson, L. (April 2017). Co-occupations: Feasibility of a comprehensive in-depth assessment procedure. The American Occupational Therapy Association Annual Conference Philadelphia, PA, USA.
