A Study of Play Patterns of Mentally Retarded Children

A general survey of the play activity studies from 1920 to 1959 has found that during 1920 to 1930, Lehman and his co-workers had made great contributions in studying play behavior related to mental ability, sex differences, age differences, social participations, etc., and that Hulson had thoroughly set up free play observation methods. From 1930 to 1940 more studies were concerned with children's free play patterns. From 1940 to 1950 there were fewer contributions. Afterwards, from 1950 to 1959 came a shift of study interests from observing general play activities to the therapeutical area. All these studies from 1920 to 1959 were mostly concerned with normal preschool and elementary school children, with very few studies on delinquent or emotional problem children, but none was done with the mentally retarded(3).