Behavioral mapping of children's physical activities and social behaviors in an indoor preschool facility: methodological challenges in revealing the influence of space in play.

Background: GIS (Geographic Information Systems) based behavior maps are useful for visualizing and analyzing how children utilize their play spaces. However, a GIS needs accurate locational information to ensure that observations are correctly represented on the layout maps of play spaces. The most commonly used tools for observing and coding free play among children in indoor play spaces require that locational data be collected alongside other play variables.

Multisensory stimuli enhance 3-year-old children's executive function: A three-dimensional object version of the standard Dimensional Change Card Sort.

A three-dimensional object version of the standard Dimensional Change Card Sort (DCCS) was developed to examine the influence of multisensory stimuli on 3-year-old children's executive function. Whereas the developmental phenomenon marking 3-year-olds' difficulties with rule use in the standard DCCS can be attributed to several cognitive factors, we examined the possibility that better encoding of object features could facilitate children's rule-switching behavior. We examined whether 3-year-olds might be able to capitalize on cues available to multiple senses to create a more robust representation of object features that would enable them to overcome previous difficulties with rule switching in the standard DCCS.

Seeking Balance in Motion: The Role of Spontaneous Free Play in Promoting Social and Emotional Health in Early Childhood Care and Education.

There is accumulating scientific evidence of the potential of play and playfulness to enhance human capacity to respond to adversity and cope with the stresses of everyday life. In play we build a repertoire of adaptive, flexible responses to unexpected events, in an environment separated from the real consequences of those events. Playfulness helps us maintain social and emotional equilibrium in times of rapid change and stress.