Inspiring imagination

The importance of pretend play and its role in your child's development

Imaginative or pretend play is a vital tool in the “creative tool box” that helps all children make the most of opportunities to explore, experience and grow.

If your child is deaf and has limited or delayed language skills, it is natural to wonder whether they will be able to access these opportunities in the same way that others take for granted.

There are many different ways deaf children and their families can enjoy these fundamental experiences together, so this article:

1. Explores why the ability to use their imagination and to be creative is important for all children.
2. Explains how you can encourage your deaf child’s imagination and their imaginative language.
3. Suggests some practical and fun activities to help develop your deaf child’s “creative toolbox”.

Developing a love of imaginative play

Imaginative play is an important part of your child’s “creative tool box”.

No matter what your child’s language level, it is never too soon to encourage a joy of imaginative play and the confidence to explore through sensory play.

These provide important learning experiences from which all deaf children’s development can grow.

Imaginative play can:

• Extend your child’s vocabulary and communication skills, exposing them to new language, ideas and experiences – this will add depth and colour to their world.
• Develop your child’s social and emotional skills and help them to understand that others might think and feel differently to themselves – this encourages turn-taking, negotiating and collaboration, all of which are vital skills for successful relationships with others.
• Build your child’s problem-solving and verbal reasoning skills.
• Encourage your child to understand and use more abstract language, such as “I think…”, “I wonder…”, “maybe…”, “perhaps…”, “shall we see…”
• Develop your child’s ability to approach life with flexibility, creativity and curiosity.
• Build your child’s confidence to express him/herself, and successfully share events they have experienced.
• Support your child’s physical development, with play and creative activities that encourage both their gross and fine motor skills (e.g. acting out stories).
• Develop a love of experimentation and exploration through sensory play, imaginative play and building activities.

“Imagine that!” – Encouraging imagination

Very young children tend to see the world around them in “black and white” terms.

If they can see something, it must exist. If they can’t see it, it does not. A dog should look like a dog and behave like a dog, if it doesn’t then it can’t be a dog!

As children get older and their experience of the world they live in expands, so does their ability to think beyond the “here and now”. They learn to imagine, tell stories and use language in a far more descriptive and playful way.

This is entirely normal for all children. However, as children get older they learn to imagine, tell stories and use language in a far more descriptive and playful way.

These are important things to learn which in the longer term will provide your child with the foundations for a wide variety of language and literacy skills.

How imaginative skills develop

Being able to use their imagination is a vital part of language development for all children.

For most children with normal hearing, their imaginative skills tend to develop naturally  – without much conscious external input –  as the breadth and depth of their language grows.

This occurs as a result of exposure to stories, nursery rhymes and songs, listening to and playing with other children, watching TV and listening incidentally to everyday conversations.

Whilst children with normal hearing usually develop their imagination incidentally, deaf children will need a more deliberative, proactive input from those around them to help them develop their imaginative skills.

There is no reason your deaf child should not develop the exact same imaginative language skills.

However, since it is harder for your child to access the language and stories in the same way that their hearing friends do, you will need to take a proactive approach to ensure they have the same opportunities for learning.

Pretend play helps with focus and attention

Ninety percent of what typically-developing children learn in their early years they pick up incidentally – through everyday family life.

In other words, a child can be playing with a toy on one side of the room, but listening in the background to what is going on in other areas of the room and learning from it.

Learning in this way is very difficult for a deaf child, so you need to build up your child’s ability to focus and pay attention in different situations. Pretend or imaginative play is a great way of building up focus and attention as it is child-led and motivating for them.

This should be fun! It is all about pretending, making up stories, dressing up, singing, books, playing games of hide and seek. There is no end to what you can do, the only rule is that it should encourage your child to think, pretend and imagine.

The world of make believe

All children need opportunities to use their imaginations – and this includes your child who is deaf. Nearly everything your child sees grown-ups and other children do can become material for dramatic or pretend play.

So, encourage your child and watch closely. By observing the nature of their make-believe play, you often see yourself as your child sees you.

Dramatic play also indicates the things your child is interested in learning and gives you clues as to what you should talk about or play with.

You can contribute to this kind of play by providing places and props. More importantly, you can offer some of the words for what your child is doing and what they are using and observing.

How to encourage imaginative play everyday

Look out for opportunities during your everyday activities to encourage your child’s imagination through play. You may be surprised how many different ways you can identify.

Some general tips to stimulate your child’s imagination

Before we take a look at some specific activities, here are some general ways you can encourage your child’s imagination through play.

• Notice your child’s attention across different types of activities:
• What activities keep their attention for longer periods of time?
• What is it about these activities that help maintain your child’s attention?
• Look for your child’s preferences in play:
• Do they prefer ‘touchy-feely’ toys, noisy play, home-corner play, one-on-one play vs group play, imitation games, etc?
• Why do you think they prefer one over the other?
• What is it about a particular type of play that motivates them?
• Look for ways of reinforcing and maintaining attention – individually, in a small group and in a large group.
• Use visual ‘props’ to support attention and understanding as your child’s language is developing.
• Use music, song and movement – great ways to build focus and attention and fun ways to learn!

All children are different

Some children take to imaginative play and love it! If your child fits this profile you can expect them to watch, get involved and participate eagerly. Your child is likely to initiate games with you and also be seen ‘pretend playing’ with toys by themselves.

For other children who are more self-conscious, or who prefer play that is related to things they know and can see and understand, this is much more challenging and may take longer. If this describes your child then it is likely that they will watch rather than get involved initially and take an interest for shorter periods of time. It is even more important for these children to develop their imaginative play, so do not lose heart. Look for any opportunity to encourage their pretend play. It will come and develop over time.

As your child gains confidence in an activity you might notice that they offer a cup or some play food to a toy or to yourself. Your child might respond when you say, “I want to go for a walk” and pretend to put on your coat, by pretending to put on their coat.

In time, you might see your child initiating imaginative play by themselves. You are aiming for your child to be able to create stories in their head that they can elaborate on, change and include others.

Hopefully, you might hear your child babble as if in conversation with themselves and their toys and yourself. This babble will develop to include the odd real word and later on your child will hold conversations and create scenarios of their own.

When you see your child using a toy for something other than its real purpose, such as a banana held up to the ear for a telephone, you know you are doing a great job! Your child is well on their way to developing their imaginative story-telling skills.

We will now take a look at a range of different types of imaginative play activities your child might enjoy – remember, your child may enjoy some more than others!

These suggestions are only intended to be starting points – we are sure you will be inspired to come up with your own ways to develop your child’s imaginative play skills.

Different types of imaginative play activities

“Representational” play

Imaginative play begins with representational play – e.g. feeding teddy a cup of tea with a plastic cup, covering a doll with a scarf to put it to bed.

Support your child’s imaginative play with representational play so you can act out different ‘scenarios’, for example:

• Have a teddy bears’ picnic.
• Act out bath and bedtime routines for teddies and dolls.
• Use your play animals and act out visiting the zoo or going to the farm.
• Go on a bear hunt (remember, have the “We’re going on a bear hunt” book with you as you act it out and refer to it as you go along).

As your child’s play and language develops, encourage them to rely less on the representational props and begin to develop more complex scenarios and ideas, along with their story-telling skills.

For example:

• Imagine going on holiday, where are you going? If it’s a beach holiday you might need a swimming costume, and a bucket and spade. Pretend to get in a car and drive, or on to a plane and fly off!
• Encourage your child’s problem-solving and verbal reasoning skills. Throw in a problem for your child to solve:
• “Uh oh, the car has broken down! What shall we do?” or “Oh no, it’s started to rain! The picnic is getting wet!”
• Together, come up with different ideas to solve or work- around the ‘problem’ (these can be as realistic or as imaginative as you like – e.g. from calling the AA, to meeting a magic wizard who can help you!)
• There are so many ways to encourage your child to think creatively and imaginatively.
• Focus on activities you know your child will enjoy, but also do try new ones with them. It is important that all deaf children have the opportunity to experience new things and expand their understanding of their world.
• You can easily tailor everything to the age and language levels of your child and make it as visual as is needed.

Playing house

A “house corner” is a great way to encourage pretend or dramatic play. This can be any place – such as a corner of a room – where your child can safely play with little interference.

A rug or pillow on the floor can be a pretend bed; low boxes can be chairs, tables, cookers and even refrigerators.

Many safe household objects (such as old pots and pans, wooden spoons, and plastic cutlery, cups, plates and bowls, etc) can also become part of this housekeeping corner.

There are endless activities in connection with playing house that children enjoy:

• Washing, ironing, and hanging up clothes.
• Cooking, washing-up, cleaning, vacuuming and sweeping.
• Dressing, changing, bathing and feeding a doll or teddy bear.

Whether you are an observer or a participant, all of these activities provide the opportunity to talk with your child.

Playing shop

If your child has gone shopping with you, they are likely to enjoy a play ‘shop’. Like the play ‘house’, this can be very simple. Crates or boxes in a convenient corner of the house or in the garden will do.

While miniature replicas of some grocery products are available in toy shops, you could use empty cans (but ensure they have no sharp edges), cereal boxes, or milk/juice cartons from your kitchen.

You could buy a plastic till for your child or make one yourself from old boxes, and use some plastic/paper pretend money.

If you provide a few simple props, your child’s imagination may take over and lead them into the world of make believe.

As your youngster plays with you or other children, there can be exchanges of products, pretend money, and conversation.

You can introduce many expressions to encourage your child’s imagination and extend their imaginative vocabulary. As they acquire more language, you may want to use more questions and number concepts.

Do not force any learning during these moments of fun. This is a time for your child to relax and enjoy what they are doing. Your child will learn naturally without noticing that they are expected to learn.

As your child learns new words, you will someday hear them using the words spontaneously as they are playing.

Dressing up – who can we be today?

Dressing up can make playing house or shop even more fun – as well as being an enjoyable activity in its own right.

Do you have any dressing up clothes? Have some fun pretending to be others. Perhaps you can be a doctor, an animal, a police officer or a superhero! Hats, scarves, purses, old shoes, dresses, shirts and jackets can make a collection of costumes for your child. Your child will probably appreciate the opportunities for imaginative play offered by a “dressing‑up box” for years.

With a little imagination, your child can become another member of the family – their brother or sister, you or your partner, their granny or granddad. Does someone wear a uniform or work clothes they can dress up in? Does grandad have a favourite hat? Does an older sibling have a school uniform?

Or they may become a shopkeeper, a postal worker, a police officer, a prince or princess, a queen or king, a doctor or nurse, a mechanic or engineer, a cowboy or cowgirl, an explorer or an astronaut.

Act out little stories with your child, for example, if they are pretending to be a doctor, say “Teddy is very poorly! He needs to go to the doctor!”, “What has happened? Did he fall over?”, “What will the doctor do for Teddy?”, and so on.

If you encourage this make-believe world, you will find special opportunities to talk to your child in their new role:

• Talk about who your child is pretending to be – what they are doing and what they are wearing.
• Play along with the situation – you might even enjoy dressing up in character as well!
• Let your imagination run as freely as your child’s and have fun!

Once your child is comfortable dressing up in recognisable clothes, you can encourage them to think more creatively / imaginatively. For example, a colander is now a space helmet and you can fly to the moon! A stick is a magic wand and things can disappear and re-appear!

Eventually you can extend this play by encouraging your child to build dens, or to use boxes to ‘create’ boats / cars / trains and pretend to go somewhere!

Junk modelling – the sky’s the limit!

A quick rummage through your recycling can provide all the raw materials you need to inspire your child’s imaginative play with junk modelling:

• Use empty cardboard tubes and boxes along with plastic cartons and bottles along with some glue or sticky tape to create “junk models” and explore your child’s imagination!
• Fly to the moon in a rocket, drive your train to see grandma, help someone with your ambulance!
• The models don’t have to be perfect, and the internet is full of ideas if you need a little prompt.
• Remember – junk modelling is about the imaginative play that follows and the language you can model / demonstrate for your child, as much what you make!

Creative and sensory play

Encourage a spirit of experimentation and curiosity with all your child’s senses.

It really doesn’t matter what you do, but the goal is to encourage your child to be brave and experience their world in all sorts of different ways through touch, smell, sight and sound:

• Try painting with colour paints or water – use brushes, sponges, feathers, vegetables, anything you want!
• Use different shaped cutters with playdough and make up little stories
• Get dirty with mud play outside, or splashing in puddles.
• Use shaving foam on a table to use your fingers to draw patterns in.
• Cook and cool pasta and then enjoy playing with it with your hands
• Let them use their hands and feet!
• Remember to talk about what you are doing and model the language, for example, “That’s cold!” “It’s sticky!”

In summary – imaginative play

Supporting your child’s pretend play

There are many ways to encourage your child to think creatively and imaginatively, which will then feed into his or her language and social development.

The pretend play activities we have shown in this article are all things that any child might enjoy – but deaf children will need some additional input from you to encourage their imaginative vocabulary.

This simply involves you spending time with your child, talking with them and creating stories for you both to share in a variety of ways.

The joy of these pretend play activities is that at the beginning, your child does not have to have any spoken language to start enjoying them. You can do so much to encourage their imagination visually and using a prop such as a teddy, soft toy animal or dolly.

Imaginative or pretend play is also a wonderful way to encourage social skills with siblings or other children. As children take on roles together, they create something to talk about and provide opportunities for interactions.

Focus on games you know your child will enjoy, but also try new ones with them. It is important all deaf children have the opportunity to experience new things and expand their understanding of their world.

Always aim to tailor the activities to your child’s age and language level, and make it as visual as they need.

And last, but not least, remember to have fun as you fire up your child’s young imagination!