ry definitions define play as either "aimless expenditure[s] of exuberant energy" (Schiller, 1875, cited in Yawkey, 1984, p. 9), or as "superfluous activit[ies] taking place instinctively in the absence of real actions" (Spencer, 1896, cited in Yawkey, 1984, p. 9). Even a 1961 Webster's Dictionary definition of play still defined it as "any exercise or series of actions intended for amusement or diversion." To regard instinctual activities as lacking in real developmental consequence is to betray a nonscientific bias against the primal, in this instance. Not all mental development is due to outside intervention. As will be shown, four categories of children's play do not include instructional intervention--although the primal nature of play does not preclude the beneficial intervention of an instructor.
Stone (1995) outlines Smilansky's (1968) adaptations of Piaget's (1962) cognitive play categories to better identify play (in a cognitive sense) when it does occur (p. 46). In addition, her concern was that, if parents, educators, and researchers into child dev
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