How Do Children Play with Toy Trains and for What Benefits? A Scoping Review

Children play with different toys in different ways which may be associated with different developmental outcomes. While existing work has investigated different categories of toys, differences may also be present within specific toy categories. Therefore, understanding how specific toys promote play behaviours and their associated developmental outcomes has important implications for teachers, parents, caregivers, and researchers. To better understand how children play with toy trains, whether groups of children show a particular preference for toy trains and what (if any) associated benefits there are for playing with toy trains, 36 studies published in psychology and educational databases up to December 2022 were reviewed. A key finding emerged regarding the importance of the structured, realistic, and familiar nature of toy trains being important for facilitating pretend play as well as social collaboration behaviours during social play. Whilst findings in relation to gender-stereotyped preferences for playing with toy trains were mixed and no gender differences were found in research investigating play styles, neurodivergent children were found to have a preference for toy trains. These findings are important given that certain play styles, pretend play in particular, have been associated with benefits in children's executive function, language, creativity, and social understanding.

Doll play prompts social thinking and social talking: Representations of internal state language in the brain

Doll play provides opportunities for children to practice social skills by creating imaginary worlds, taking others' perspectives, and talking about others' internal states. Previous research using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) found a region over the posterior superior temporal sulcus (pSTS) was more active during solo doll play than solo tablet play, implying that doll play might present opportunities for rehearsing theory of mind and empathy skills, even when playing alone. In this research, we addressed this more directly by investigating 4-8-year-old children's (N = 33) use of internal state language (ISL; i.e., references to emotions, desires, and cognitions) when playing with dolls and on tablets, both by themselves and with a social partner, and their associated brain activity in the pSTS using fNIRS. We found that children used more ISL about others when playing with dolls than when playing on tablets, particularly when they were playing alone. This mirrored the patterns seen in pSTS activity in previous research. When individual variability in ISL about others was considered, more ISL about others was linked to stronger pSTS activation. Thus, variability in pSTS activity during play is not about the perceptual or physical differences between toys (e.g., dolls are more human-like) but about what children think about when they engage in different kinds of play. This is the first research to investigate brain activity during spontaneously occurring ISL and indicates that children have a tendency to take and discuss others' perspectives during doll play, with implications for social processing in the brain. A video abstract of this article can be viewed at https://youtu.be/58HgxbuhBzU.

Seven-year-olds' references to internal states when playing with toy figures and a video game

References to internal states (e.g., thoughts, feelings, and desires) indicate children's appreciation of people's inner worlds. Many children spend time playing video games; however, the nature of children's speech when doing so has received little attention. We investigated the use of internal state language (ISL) as 251 seven-year-olds played with toy figures and a video game designed for the study. Although children used ISL more when playing with toy figures, children used ISL in both contexts, highlighting video game play as a context where children demonstrate their appreciation of inner worlds. Children's speech in the two contexts differed in how ISL was used: references to children's own internal states were more common when playing the video game, and the characters' internal states more common when playing with the toy figures. These findings are discussed with reference to the format of the play activities affording different opportunities to discuss internal states.

HIGHLIGHTS

In traditional play children refer to internal states, however, it is unclear whether this occurs when they play video games.Children referred to internal states when playing with toy figures and a video game, but did so more with the toys.Children's video game play can be used as a new context for the study of children's social understanding.