Object mediated peer interaction of low SES three- and five-year-olds

To examine effects of age on play in which children coordinate their attention to objects and peers, 36 low-socioeconomic (SES) black children, ages 3 and 5 years, were observed in a laboratory playroom. The children were observed playing under two conditions: (a) with a familiar playmate of the same age and gender; and (b) without a playmate. During the with-peer condition, four playstates were defined according to whether the child was interacting with peers or with objects. Results of transitional analyses of these four playstates support Bakeman and Brownlee's (1980) one-step model wherein probable transitions involve a change in only one domain, social or cognitive. However, results from this study do not support Bakeman and Brownlee's findings that probable one-step transitions most often occur in the cognitive domain. In this study, all of the probable transitions took place in the social domain. Although the children exhibited some one-step social transitions, they did not use peer interaction as a stepping stone to activities that combined peer interaction with object-mediated play. The 5-year-olds did not engage in significantly more play than did the 3-year-olds that combined peer interaction with object use during the with-peer condition. There were also no effects of age on the proportions of object play accounted for by different cognitive levels of play (e.g., sensorimotor, pretense). However, the 5-year-olds did exhibit a greater total amount of object play than did the 3-year-olds; and less object play was observed in the with-peer condition than in the without-peer condition.