Play and intelligence development in modern preschoolers

Abstract

The study examined the relationship between intel-ligence components (Wechsler scales) and scales of story-based role-play among older preschool children (N=50), with the findings demonstrating significant intersections and corre-lations. Play contributes to cognitive development through several mechanisms: the implementation of the idea of the game, the symbolic enactment of roles, the use of substituteitems representing real-world objects, and the modelling of life situations. When assessing play activity development, the fol-lowing indicators were recorded: the idea of the game (discus-sion, development, presence of a goal), game content, game plot, role characteristics, play action characteristics (use of substitute items, conventionality of actions), achievement of the result (correlation with the original plan, variety of meth-ods for achieving the result), and use of the play environment (preparation, choice). The Wexler test was administered in full. The majority of children (82%) demon-strated good or high levels of play activity development. Highest scores were observed on the scales ‘play design’ (M=2.16), ‘play content’ (M=2.14), and ‘play plot’ (M=2.12), while the lowest scores were obtained on ‘performing a role’ (M=1.76) and ‘achieving a result’ (M=1.92). On intelligence scales, 62% of children demonstrated high general intelligence scores (above 120 points), with the remaining 38% achieving good scores; no respondents demonstrated low intelligence levels. The highest subscale scores were observed on ‘awareness’ (M=15.54), ‘similarities’ (M=15.18), ‘missing parts’ (М=5.34), and ‘labyrinths’ (М=14.52), while the lowest were on ‘intelligibility’ (M=11.16); ‘folding figures’ (M=12.0), and ’coding’ (М=11.68). The depth of game content and the development and implementation of the game idea were significantly correlated with conceptual thinking, mathematical ideas, the ability to build causal relationships in figurative thinking, and observation skills. The variety and elaboration of the plot were significantly correlated with general erudition, the ability to establish patterns on verbal and sign material, and the development of conceptual thinking. The implementation of game content and of the game idea required the child to have both integral and analytical perception of reality. Envi-ronment modeling and play space organization were significantly correlated with verbal and non-verbal intelligence and relied on the child’s levels of spatial representations, mathematical and logical repre-sentations, and general erudition.