Pretend Play Quiz

1. Which is a reason for the importance of pretend play?

  1. it can stimulate language
  2. it can help the child learn problem solving and other thinking skills
  3. it can help social interaction
  4. all of the above

The correct answer is D All of the above. Pretend play is important for many reasons and helps many aspects of the child’s development, including development of thinking skills, language skills, and social skills.

2. Which skill should your child be able to do before you begin to teach him pretend play skills?

  1. He can say some words
  2. He can imitate simple actions
  3. He can speak in sentences
  4. He can sort objects by category

The correct answer is B. If your child cannot imitate simple actions, like putting hands on head, or imitate actions with objects, like putting a block in a cup or tapping the table with a spoon, he is probably not ready to learn pretend play. A – he can say some words – is partly true, because if a child can say some words, it will probably be easier to learn simple pretending, but saying words isn’t absolutely necessary for learning simple pretend. C and D, saying sentences and sorting by category, are more advanced skills that are not necessary to learn simple pretending.

3. Which of the following are simple pretend skills that you should start with?

  1. Role play (for example, pretending to be a superhero)
  2. Imagining an object that’s not there at all (for example, pretending to hold a telephone without an object in the hand)
  3. One-step simple toy play with the child as the actor (for example, the child pretends to drink from an empty cup or feed a baby with a bottle)
  4. One-step simple toy play with a doll or stuffed animal as the actor (for example, the mommy doll gives the baby doll a kiss)

The correct answer is C. One-step simple play activities, where the child is pretending to something, is easier to learn than role play, where the child has to pretend to be a character for a series of actions, and easier than imagining an object that isn’t there. Of the one-step simple play activities, the child pretending to do something (answer C) is usually easier for the child to learn than making a doll or stuffed animal do something.

4. Which of these toys would be good ones to use when teaching simple pretend play?

  1. A toy telephone
  2. A rattle
  3. A spinning top
  4. A light-up toy

The correct answer is A, a toy telephone. The rattle, the spinning top, and the light-up toy may be good for teaching your child cause and effect – that when he does something, a specific thing happens. But they will not be good for teaching him to pretend. The toy telephone will help teach him to pretend he’s talking on the phone, even if he just holds it to his ear and makes sounds into the phone.

  1. True or False: As with other kinds of teaching, start with teaching several simple activities separately, like pretending to feed a baby doll, and pretending to put the baby doll to bed, and then link them together to form a sequence that makes sense, like feed the baby, burp the baby, put him to bed.

The correct answer is TRUE. It is easier to teach the child to put together a short sequence of actions if he already has learned the individual steps.

6. You give your child a toy pot and a spoon and he pretends to stir the imaginary contents of the pot. What would be a good reinforcer for this pretend play?

  1. You take the spoon and pretend to taste it, saying ‘yum yum! What a good cook you are. Should we stir some more?’
  2. You blow some bubbles, which he loves.
  3. You give him a bit of a favorite cookie.
  4. You take away the toys and move on to a different lesson

The correct answer is A. By enthusiastically praising him and continuing the play sequence, you are encouraging him to continue the play scene and using a naturally occurring reinforcer. Answers B and C are fine reinforcers and not a bad thing to do in this situation, but they don’t encourage continuation of the pretend play activity. Answer D, moving on to another activity, is all right if you think the child is getting bored with the pretend play, but again, doesn’t encourage continuation and expansion of the activity.

  1. True or False: Once your child has learned a few play sequences with you, he will probably be ready to play with other children without much help.

The correct answer is FALSE. With pretend play, as with any skills that the child learns, you want to make sure that he is not limited to doing the skill in the same place and with the same people that he originally learned them with. So you would practice them in different places and try to get other adults and children to do simple pretend play with him while continuing to give him all the help he needs to be successful.

8. Which three activities might be good ones to start with, when your child is first learning pretend play?

  1. Feeding a baby doll
  2. Stirring a pot
  3. Covering a baby doll with a blanket
  4. Typing on a computer

The correct answer depends a lot on what your child has seen and paid attention to. For most children, feeding a baby, stirring a pot, or covering a baby/child with a blanket may be things they have seen and understand. Typing on a computer, on the other hand, while they may have seen an adult do it, is likely to be an activity that isn’t very meaningful to them and that they don’t really understand. So, for most children, A, B and C would be the best play activities to start with.  Of course, you must be the judge of that for your own child.

9. When in typical development does pretend play usually begin?

  1. 1-2 years
  2. 2 -3 years
  3. 5-6 years
  4. 8-10 years

The correct answer is A, 1-2 years. Usually babies will start to do simple pretend, like drink from an empty cup, or feed a doll, in the second year of life. If your child has reached most of the cognitive and social skills of that age period, as we discussed in the module on Expected Development, no matter how old he actually is, he is probably ready to learn some simple pretend.

  1. True or False: You can teach simple pretend activities in the same way you can teach other skills, for example, by demonstrating actions, gently prompting the child to do these actions, and reinforcing him when he does these actions.

The correct answer is TRUE. Teaching pretend skills is really no different from teaching other skills we’ve talked about. You present him with the material, in this case, simple toys that lend themselves to pretending, and if necessary, give him a demonstration of how to use them, a gentle prompt like placing a toy bottle in his hand and guiding him to feed the baby doll, and then enthusiastic praise. Of course, if your child learns more quickly when you use reinforcers like foods or bubbles, even though they are not related to the play skill you are trying to teach, that’s OK.  But, as soon as you can, you should try to replace that type of reinforcement with naturally occurring reinforcers, like praise and a continuation of the activity.  Hopefully, your child will enjoy playtime with you more and more as he learns more and more pretend play sequences.