emphasizes the cognitive aspects of its nature:
Play enables children to progress along the developmental sequence from the sensorimotor intelligence of infancy to preoperational thought in the preschool years to the concrete operational thinking exhibited by primary children . . . In addition to its role in cognitive development, play serves important functions in children's physical, emotional, and social development. (p. 45)
Stone (1995) cites Yawkey's (1987) view that "play is
defined as intrinsically motivated, freely chosen, [and] process-oriented, over product-oriented, nonliteral, and enjoyable (p. 46). In Yawkey's (1984) compilation of articles entitled Child's Play: Developmental and Applied, he considers the contributions of play to development. One analysis depicts play as leading to an upward spiral of increasingly complex development:
Play leads to more complex and sophisticated cognitive behavior, which in turn affects the content of play in continuing upward spiral. In the cognitive domain, play functions in four ways: (1) it provides access to more avenues of information, (2) it serves to consolidate mastery of skills and concepts, (3) it--through the use of cognitive operations--promotes and maintains the effective functioning of the intellectual apparatus, and finally, (4) it promotes creativity through the playful use of skills and concepts. (p. 14)
The above passage, weighted heavily in cognitive theory, gives rise to a definition of play which diametrically opposes non-cognitive definitions of play. If play is regarded as an activity "peripheral to the mainstream of development" (Athey, 1984, cited in Yawkey, 1984, p. 9), it will remain superfluous. It is interesting observe earlier, less enlightened definitions of play in order that the reader gain a current perspective on why it is necessary to defend playful activities as essential to cognitive development at all. Nineteenth centu...