The Relationships Between the frequency of pretend play, the level of Social Pretend Play, and Understanding of False-Belief in 4 Year-old Children

ABSTRACT

The aim of this study is to investigate the associations between the frequency of pretend play, the level of social pretend play, and understanding of false-belief in 4-year-old children. This research was been conducted focusing on sixty four 4-year-old children who attend daycare centers in Seoul and KyungGi-Do. The results of this study suggest that the frequency of pretend play was not correlated with an understanding of the false-belief tasks, whereas there was a positive association between the level of social pretend play and an understanding false-belief, independent of vocabulary ability. Moreover, children\'s vocabulary abilities showed a positive correlation with the frequency of pretend play, the level of social pretend play and false-belief competence. These findings indicate that children with higher levels of social pretend play perform better than children of lower levels of social pretend play in understanding false-belief tasks.