Play and social skills of kindergarten children with mixed specific developmental disorders

Abstract

Kindergarten children acquire social skills playing with their peers. Play is considered to be a major developmental indicator at kindergarten age. The aim of this paper is to determine the relation between the quality of social skills and interaction during play in children with mixed specific developmental disorders. The secondary goal is to determine differences between parents and educators in the perception of the quality of social skills and interaction of these children during play. e study sample included 42 participants, three to six years and eleven months of age (M=5.03; SD=1.63; 69.05% of boys). All participants had a confirmed risk of developmental delay in social skills area which was determined with Ages and Stages Questionnaire: Social Emotional-2 (ASQ:SE-2). Evaluation of social skills was conducted with Preschool and Kindergarten Behavior Scales (PKBS-2). For the assessment of the quality of play, Penn Interactive Peer Play Scale (PIPPS) was used. e results of the research indicate that social cooperation is the component of social skills in which children are the most successful. Compared to the educators' assessment, parents assessed that their children had better quality of social skills. Educators estimated, better than parents, that the children's interaction while playing was of higher quality. Parents considered their children to be more excluded from play than their educators estimated. The findings showed that children who had better quality of social skills disrupted play less and had lower scores in play disconnection assessment. It is recommended that the assessment of social and play skills is conducted before the creation of individualized educational plan that should be conducted in kindergarten (IEP 1).

Keywords

• mixed specic development disorder
• social skills
• play