Play is essential to healthy, balanced development. For children with disabilities, it is even more vital. Many children play naturally, but for those with difficulties, play does not always come easily. Drawing on these principles, the authors—working with parents and educators—have gathered in this 250-page volume a series of games arranged by difficulty level and organized according to the abilities they require and the skills they help develop. The book opens with an introductory guide, followed by five sections grouping games: exploratory, movement, skill-based, group, imaginative, and problem-solving. The games range from the simplest—small body movements—to the most complex, sometimes requiring easily found or homemade objects. Many are familiar: the gestures, pranks, and pastimes offered to small children since time immemorial. But here the authors explain how to perform them so they serve a purpose, how to encourage the child's participation, which manual skills, sensory activities, or intellectual capacities they help develop. Overall, this is a valuable book for parents, educators, and friends who want to understand the importance of play—which, after all, aims first and foremost to delight the child—and who wish to learn how to play with the child, together fostering the development of all their capacities.
- T.C., 1989
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