Effects of Social and Isolate Toys on Social Play in an Inclusive Setting

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to evaluate whether the availability of particular types of toys would influence the level of interactive play achieved by young children with disabilities in an inclusive preschool classroom. Data were collected on eight children with disabilities who were students in two public school classrooms. Two types of toys, social and isolate, were systematically varied over the course of 4 weeks. Observations indicated that cooperative play was significantly more likely when social toys were available. Although isolate play was infrequent in both conditions, cooperative play rarely occurred with isolate toys, whereas social toys supported a more equal balance between parallel and cooperative play.