Play Skills of Preschool Children with Speech and Language Delays

Abstract

The Preschool Play Scale (PPS) was used to rate the free play behaviors of 21 children with typical language development (control group) and 21 children with speech-language delays (study group) who were three and four years of age. Prior to being scored on the PPS, each child was individually observed for 3 0 minutes of outdoor free play and 3 0 minutes of indoor free play. After the observations, additional information for five categories on the PPS was obtained from a teacher observation check list complete the scoring process. The following general research question was addressed: Will children who have speech -language delays and children with typical language development differ in play age and dimension scores on the PPS? Statistically significant differences were found in the play age, in all dimension scores, and for 1 4 of the 1 6category scores. The control group consistently scored approximately one year higher than the children with speech - language delays. Some practical play intervention strategies were given for children with speech and language delays.