Meaningful Play - Overview

Overview

Meaningful play is discussed in the disciplines of psychology, education, counselling and law. It is also utilized in the fields of video games. While there appears to be no exact moment when the term was created, it first started to appear in the field of video games with the book "rules of play" (talked about in the video game section below), and was further adapted into other fields such as psychology soon after with a modified definition.

Meaningful play has grown and become more influential over the years. As researchers discovered many of the various uses for play (For example cleaning up excess brain cells during play ) as well as discovered how many various forms of play there are . Advocates of meaningful play and play in general have even voiced their recommendation that playing be placed above testing in young grades like kindergarten . As well there are studies branching out to different age groups seeing if meaningful play can help the elderly with cognitive and physical functioning

While all play can be considered meaningful due to the inherent nature of play to have some sort of meaning of either competition or enjoyment, meaningful play is also about the designed meaning taken from play.