TOYS AND THE CHILD’S PHYSICAL
AND PSYCHOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT
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PUZZLE UPS
SDO
18 month + |
Whenever we talk about the
particularities of toys, their effects and relationships with
the development of children, they are invariably linked to the
significance of play, because the elaboration of these objects
is generally conceived taking into account this link. This way,
for example, J. Piaget establishes his well known classification
of games. In it, he specifies that games can be functional, construction,
of rules, of roles, and didactic, although these last ones do
not really constitute a category in themselves , but one that
is related to the rest of them.
Using this classification of games
as a base for our study, an identical one is organized when it
comes to toys. Then we can talk about functional, construction,
roles, rules and didactic toys. These toys have certain contents,
educational functions and action patterns, closely related to
the development of the games, and they are materialized in certain
types of objects that also have these features. This way, the
toy appears as something without significance in itself, as an
object of reality, and its effects on physical and psychological
development are only valued taking into account what the game
provides. To is acceptable to a point, but it limits the knowledge
of the real possibilities of the toy for the development of children,
because it is always related to the situation of play. And although
play is the most important activity of pre-scholers, it is not
the only activity that children carry out. and in which toys,
as objects of reality also exert a stimulating action over the
different processes and psychic properties, although they are
not used within a play activity.
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EDUCOMPI
ANIMALES
3 years + |
For example, when a nursing
child manipulates any object, for example a ball (that it is generally
considered a toy) and he carries out several repetitive actions
with it, this is not really a game, since such actions only allow
the child to know the object, its particularities and properties,
and not to derive enjoyment from it. This first phase of the activity
with objects is what usually is known as manipulation of objects,
and it is always directed to the knowledge of their external characteristics.
It is not being used as part of a game but it has fostered the
stimulation of diverse processes and psychic qualities, such as
perceptual discrimination and differentiation, concentration of
the attention, generalization of relationships, reasoning. In
short, it has had an important effect when it comes to the development
of the child.
If this is or not considered play
is a historical discussion within the field of psychology. But
what is important now is to notice that the possibilities of toy
for development are not linked to the play activity in itself,
but rather they go further on, to the group of all the activities
that children carry out in their evolution. And that, therefore,
their study must not only be connected to the objectives of play,
but to the most varied activities that children carry out, and
consequently, referred to all their qualities and psychological
and physical processes. And this enlarges the viability of the
toy as a mean to promote child development.
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KICKING
TELETUBBIES, WITH SOUND
6 month + |
This way the purpose of
a toy is to stimulate the activity and the initiative of children,
facilitating the most diverse psychological processes and qualities,
as well as motor dexterities. They are developed in connection
with the intrinsic particularities of each toy and what it fundamentally
promotes in each psychological or physical action. It is necessary
to point out the "fundamental" aspect that each toy develops,
to highlight that in an object-toy is not only established the
psychical action that is its main function, but also other ones
that have an effect, although it is not so outstanding in some
cases. In the case of the previously mentioned ball, although
it is obvious that its main purpose is to activate thick motor
activity and the movements of the hand; it also acts over the
perception of the shape, tactile sensibility, visual discrimination,
among other properties. It avoids to consider a type of toy for
a certain particularity of development, but rather it embraces
a wide range of stimulation possibilities.
The main aim of toys is also to
offer children the opportunity to express and to put into practice
the new abilities acquired in the successive phases of the normal
development, in particular in the infantile stage in which play
is the fundamental activity and a substantial part of the stage
in which they are brought up, becoming a basic tool of their educational
process.