This month I’m featuring topics in Recommended Practices for EI Specialists of Families of Young Children who have VI, Promoting Play and Visual Behaviors and Skill Development.   Cathy Smyth, TVI, M.S. of Ed. Teacher of students with Visual Impairment, Anchor Center for Blind Children, has agreed to re-run a feature question and answer session from my class Intro. to Family Centered Practices Class.

Question:  Cathy, please introduce yourself.

Answer:   I currently work as an itinerant home visit Early Interventionist for Anchor Center for Blind Children throughout northern Colorado. I received my B. S. of Ed in Special Education with a specialization in Visual Impairment (Birth to 21) at Illinois State University, and have a Master’s degree in Early Childhood Education (Birth to 9) from Nazareth College in Rochester, New York.  My professional background includes providing services to children with visual exceptionalities in all possible settings, including home visits, itinerant services at community-based preschools and daycares, inclusive public school K-12 settings and specialized center-based programs. I have worked at Anchor Center for eleven years in the Preschool, Infant/Toddler program and now, Home visits.

I have recently begun pursuing my Doctorate in Special Education (2008) with a concentration in Research at the University of Northern Colorado.  My research interests include feeding/eating development in young children with visual impairments, early concept development and appropriate assessment of students with visual impairments.

Question:  Please share with us your work on imaginative play for very young children with visual impairments.

Answer:  Smyth, C. (2010, Fall). Imaginative Play.  TX Senseabilities, 4(3), 18-20.

Imaginative Play

“When will my child be interested in the dollhouse her Grandfather made for her?”

“My other daughter loved to dress up like a princess at this age.”

“My son talks to his father on the phone, but if I give him the toy phone, he won’t talk!” 

Imaginative play or symbolic play includes many levels of understanding.  Children must have a clear understanding of what an object represents in real life before they can learn how to represent an object in play. Imaginative play is acquired in sighted children through imitation… they watch their parents and siblings do chores around the house and to be like them, they imitate sweeping, washing dishes, mowing the lawn, etc.  Children identify characters in books and real life community members through the clothing they wear and the roles they play. Vision allows children to make connections between the firefighter, the red truck and the fire station down the street.  The differences between animals on the farm are obvious from a visual standpoint. The back of the school bus is very different in shape and purpose.

A child with a visual impairment requires real-life experiences and many opportunities to practice pretend play before they can master these complex tasks. Introducing the skills of imaginative play is an exciting and rewarding process for families and early interventionists.

Types of Imaginative Play

Using Everyday Objects

The simplest type of imaginative play is pretending with everyday objects. Children talk on the phone, drink out of an empty cup, and push the buttons on the remote. In order to understand that they can pretend to engage in these activities, young children with visual impairments must have experiences with how the real objects work.  This requires many repetitions of first tactile exploration of the object, direct instruction on how to interact with the object, and finally hearing the language that is involved with using the object.  For example, talking on the phone involves the motor and tactile skills of pushing the buttons to make a call or to answer, holding the phone to the ear to hear the person on the other end, and a very specific vocabulary.  The motivation to use these everyday objects is the feedback the child receives such as hearing Grandma’s voice, having a drink or finding their favorite musical show on the television.  In pretend play, children do not receive this feedback.  They must move past the simple cause/effect response in understanding the benefits of imitating others through social interaction.

 Routines of the Day

             The next level of imaginative play involves imitating routines experienced around the home by the child every day.  Usually children will start to pretend activities that they like to participate in such as taking a bath, helping a parent take laundry out of the dryer, or even feeding a doll a bottle.  Parents can encourage this kind of pretending by providing real-life “props” such as a small basket with a washcloth, a spray bottle and maybe a favorite toy that is used only in the bath.  Children that love bath time can be seen washing themselves with the washcloth, singing bath time songs and lining up small toys like rubber ducks that have been sprayed with water.  Only when children with visual impairments understand all the concepts and actions in a routine will they be ready to act out the routine as pretend play.

            Using a doll or a stuffed animal in a pretend play routine is a higher level of understanding.  The child must understand that the doll represents a baby, or even themselves.  Children with sight learn this connection quickly through incidental learning, but children with visual impairments must participate in routines with the doll and hear their parents or caregivers interact with the doll as well as themselves.  Again, this representative play involves processing the activity and the language over many repetitions.

            As children become more familiar with using everyday objects to represent routines, this play can become increasingly complex.  Parents are encouraged to provide a drawer or a cabinet in the kitchen where their child can explore safe kitchen items and participate in mealtime preparation. Stirring, fitting lids to pots and pans and nesting measuring cups are all motivating learning tasks that help relationship concepts develop as well as allowing children to experience family routines.  This symbolic play can be expanded later to include setting a child-sized table for dolls or family members and serving tea and cookies. Of course, cleaning up should be part of the play process!

Dress Up Play

            Pretending to be someone else in play requires understanding the characteristics and roles of others. It will be easier for a child to pretend to be someone they are exposed to everyday like their parents, rather than a firefighter or a ballerina, that they may never have met or experienced.  Providing an area in the house where a child with visual impairment can imitate the tasks of others like a small table in the kitchen or a desk with a small writing center will encourage the child to be “just like mommy or daddy” in their everyday routines. Another motivating activity is to encourage your child to pretend to be like a family pet, allowing them to drink from a small dish on the floor or going for a “walk” in the backyard.  Talking about wearing a hat like a favorite character in a book will allow your child to understand that these differences are exciting and it is fun to pretend to be someone else sometimes! Different clothing identifies community members to others, and the child with the visual impairment will need to be introduced to these differences through touch and experience. Practicing these skills at home will give your child confidence in the dress up corner at preschool where very important social skills develop between children.

Schema play

            The next step in using representational objects through play is to understand that small figures and objects can imitate the activities of real people.  This “schema” play includes little people in a school bus, construction workers and trucks in the sandbox or a dollhouse. This is a complex activity for children with a visual impairment, as they must understand the experience in real life. Many field trips to the farm that include touching, hearing and smelling the animals and equipment will give meaning to pretending that the chicken figure has laid an egg or the farmer is feeding the cows. A ride on a school bus and exploring all the parts like the seats or the door will assist children with understanding why the driver says “Move on back” and the small people move toward the back of the toy bus.  If a child has sight, the “back of the bus” is an easy concept to attain through vision. A child with vision impairment needs to walk to the back of the bus, feel what is different about the back of the bus, use language to process the differences and then generalize that knowledge to the small toy bus.  This may take many experiences and direct interventions before the child can independently play with a toy bus using pretend play.

            Participating in imaginative play activities is a complex task for the young child with a visual impairment. It is necessary for the child to understand the purpose of the real object or the role of the actual person before they can begin to engage in representative play. The best way to achieve strong concept development and language use in imaginative play is through repeated real-life experiences and practice in a safe environment.

Catherine A. Smyth

Teacher of Students with Visual Impairments

Anchor Center for Blind Children

2550 Roslyn St.

Denver, CO 80238

cathysmyth@yahoo.com