Children with Prader-Willi Syndrome (PWS) struggle with social cognition, emotional expression, and related pretend play skills. Pretend play serves as a naturalistic mode of engagement through which children with PWS can build these important developmental skills. The present study expands upon a preliminary study to further examine the effectiveness of specific intervention strategies, such as prompting the child or modeling, within a pretend play intervention for school-aged children with PWS (n = 28). Behaviors were coded during four intervention sessions per participant. ANOVAs, correlations, and hierarchical linear modeling examined moment-to-moment and long-term relationships between interventionist strategies and child play behaviors. Findings indicated that reflection/summarization and modeling most often preceded pretend play and predicted growth of these skills over time. Direct prompts/questions showed mixed effectiveness but most often preceded child expression of affect in play. Strategies of modeling and reflecting/summarizing may most effectively support pretend play skill growth in children with PWS. Care must be taken to consider the utility of prompts or questions in play interactions. Overall, an intermediate level of support may most optimally engage children with PWS and can be implemented in future interventions to support pretend play and socioemotional skill growth.

The Affect in Play Scale (APS) is a standardized pretend play assessment that measures cognitive and affective skills in school-aged children. We examined the comparative utility of the APS via telehealth across three diagnostic groups. Ninety-four children ages 6 to 9 who were either typically developing or had high-functioning autism spectrum disorder or Prader-Willi syndrome completed the APS either in-person or via videoconferencing in a single mode administration design. Equivalence analyses compared in-person versus remote APS scores within diagnostic groups. Paired samples t tests revealed no significant differences between groups on all APS variables (ps > .073). Results support equivalence and feasibility of the remote APS for school-aged children with and without developmental differences. Recommendations for administration are discussed.

The current study examines the efficacy of an 8-week pretend play intervention targeting social-cognitive abilities in children with Prader-Willi syndrome (PWS), ages 6-9. PWS is a rare disorder associated with various social, emotional, and cognitive challenges linked to pretend play impairments, and for which interventions are sparse. Nineteen children were quasi-randomized to receive the intervention or be part of a waitlist control group. Participants who received the intervention (n = 10) demonstrated significant improvements in various components of pretend play, most notably in organization of play, which may generalize to broader social-cognitive gains. These findings provide evidence of the intervention’s efficacy in enhancing pretend play skills and related social-cognitive abilities during this critical period of development for children with PWS.

Background: Cancer diagnosis can lead to massive physical, emotional, and social burdens on children and their families. Although children have the right to be informed and participate in their care, research shows that children's views are often not considered in care situations. Thus, it is essential to strengthen children's communication and self-efficacy (SE) to convey desires and needs. The present study explores whether a play intervention is associated with improved health-related quality of life (HrQoL) and SE for communication in care situations. We hypothesize that HrQoL and SE for communication will increase from the beginning to after the pretend play intervention. Methods: Children with cancer from Germany and Sweden were enrolled. The pretend play intervention consisted of six to 10 play sessions. A heterogenic selection of questionnaires was used to measure children's HrQoL and SE before the first pretend play session and after the last play intervention. Results: Nineteen families were included in the presented analyses, including 14 self-reports of children and 19 proxy reports of parents. We found improvements in child-reported communication, and emotional and psychosocial well-being using generic and cancer-specific HrQoL measurements. Further, children's SE in care situations improved during the play intervention. Parents also reported minor improvements in the physical dimensions in both generic and chronic‐generic HrQoL, along with improvements in independence. Discussion: Overall, the cancer-specific pretend play intervention offers young children with cancer a secure environment and can contribute to their well-being, and communication skills, during or after cancer treatment.

Pretend play is a creative act and an essential part of childhood. Both imagination and affect are expressed in pretend play. Affective processes that occur in both pretend play and creativity are: positive affect and joy in the task; pretend affect states; affective ideation; and integration of affect. Theories of the role of affect in creativity are discussed. Empirical support for the association between affect in pretend play and creativity and the facilitation of affect in pretend play is reviewed. Future research should investigate neurological correlates of pretend play.

Background: Children with Prader-Willi Syndrome (PWS) display impaired pretend play abilities, reflective of broader social-cognitive challenges. Pretend play interventions for children with PWS demonstrate preliminary efficacy for improving cognitive and affective processes in play. It is unknown which specific intervention strategies, such as prompting, summarization, and modeling, most effectively improve these skills. The present study examined the effectiveness of different interventionist strategies on eliciting child behaviors within pretend play intervention sessions. Methods: Participants included 21 children (ages 6–12) with PWS who participated in a pretend play intervention. Recorded intervention sessions were coded for interventionist strategies and child pretend play skills. By pairing each interventionist strategy with the immediately following child behavior, it was possible to discern the frequency of how often certain intervention strategies immediately preceded various child pretend play skills. Results: All intervention strategies were followed by child pretend play over 50

Abstract In the interview with Sandra Russ, one of most prolific creativity researchers, we discuss her career, main areas of research interest, chosen research methods and share her thoughts about the future of research on creativity and effectiveness in scientific work.

Prader-Willi Syndrome (PWS) is a rare neurodevelopmental disorder associated with social cognitive challenges, and pretend play has been demonstrated as a tool to achieve developmental goals. Following previous report on feasibility and acceptability of a remote, play-based parent-training program (Zyga, Russ, Dimitropoulos, 2018), we now report on preliminary efficacy of this program to enhance pretend play skills and social cognitive skills in preschoolers with PWS. Results across two studies demonstrated efficacy when live-coaching play sessions incorporated children into the intervention. Increases in play skills were observed for children with the mUPD subtype of PWS who underwent intervention, compared with children with mUPD who were waitlisted. Children with DEL subtype were less likely to respond to intervention. Implications for results are discussed.

The school-age years are an important period for the development of creativity. Children 6–12 years of age must learn to balance creative thinking with the conventional demands of parents, schools, and society. The development of components of creative thinking should be focused on in research. Divergent thinking is one component that is a valid indicator of creative potential. Much of the research on the developmental trajectory of divergent thinking has found contradictory results. Moderators such as type of task and culture are factors to take into account. Pretend play is also a common form of creative activity during these years that includes many of the components of creativity. Implications of research findings are discussed.

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Pretend play is a resource for children's adaptive development, especially for creativity, and should be encouraged by parents and teachers. Assessment of pretend play would be one way to determine a child's creative potential. Educators should encourage pretend play in preschool and early elementary grades by providing appropriate toys, guidance, time, and space for play to occur. Play over remote platforms is an option.

Pretend play is indeed a microcosm of creative processes. With pretend play, we can observe the fundamental components of creativity. Pretend play is one arena in which we can identify the basic essentials of the creative process and learn about the development of the interaction of these processes. Pretend play is the expression of self-generated thought that includes divergent thinking, object substitution, symbolism, fantasy, affect themes, and narrative development. In play, children switch back and forth between spontaneous idea generation and the more controlled logic of the narrative. This chapter reviews the theories of play and creativity, and the correlational, longitudinal, and experimental research literature. The development of creative processes in play is discussed. Pretend play can be used as a measure of creativity. Suggestions for future investigation are offered.

Students qualifying for services under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act may experience challenges meeting the socioemotional demands of the school environment, creating a need for targeted interventions that can be delivered within school settings. The current study used a mixed-methods approach to examine the efficacy of a 4-week school-based musical theater intervention delivered to 121 elementary students with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Quantitative analyses of teacher-reported changes in student engagement pre- and post-intervention were conducted to compare student gains made across two intervention curricula, followed by qualitative content analyses of teachers' responses to open-ended survey questions. Results indicated an overall benefit of the musical theater intervention, with increases found in composite scores on the teacher-report Student Engagement Survey measure after completion of both intervention curricula; however, gains in individual survey item scores differed by curricula. Additionally, qualitative analyses provided positive insight into several aspects of the intervention.

What have we learned about the development of creativity throughout the lifespan? The rich and comprehensive review by Bornstein (Chapter 4) captures the complexity of creativity within a developmental framework. How do we integrate the constructs and empirical findings in the field of creativity with developmental approaches? Understanding the development of creativity requires perspectives from different disciplines and a number of different investigative approaches, which this Handbook has provided. Here, we highlight some areas of consensus and implications for the future.

Prader-Willi Syndrome (PWS) is characterized by decreased social and emotional functioning. Due to the low base-rate of children with PWS, developing behavioral interventions for individuals with PWS is faced with the challenge of enrolling enough local participants for adequate study of behavioral intervention efficacy. However, these types of studies are greatly needed in PWS and telehealth methodology may be useful in addressing this challenge. This article is a follow-up to a previous feasibility study (Dimitropoulos et al., 2017) and reports on the preliminary efficacy of a telehealth intervention delivered to 15 children, ages 6-12, with PWS. Overall, children demonstrated significantly improved cognitive and affective processes in pre tend play and general cognitive flexibility following the 6-week remote intervention. These findings are limited by the lack of control group and small sample size which should be considered when interpreting results. Overall, these preliminary findings point to the potential role pretend play can serve as a means of enacting cognitive and behavioral change via telehealth.

Children with cancer suffer from symptoms and burdensome treatments that often cause distress to children and their families. Mortality is one aspect of cancer diagnosis, while another is the quality of life and well-being during and after the treatment. By supporting children’s communication, self-efficacy and coping ability in the care situation, children are given the possibilities for increased independence and participation and are allowed to develop an influence over their care. The aim of this study was to develop and evaluate the feasibility and acceptability of an adult-facilitated pretend play intervention for children with cancer. Five children with ongoing treatment for cancer were invited to a play intervention that consisted of six to eight sessions of structured pretend play aimed at increasing participation, independence, and well-being. A mixed method design was used to evaluate the feasibility and acceptability of the play intervention. Measures were collected before and after interventions, and in conjunction with every play session. Results suggest that the children enjoyed the play intervention. Findings indicate small improvements regarding self-efficacy in care situations and equal or increased quality of life for participants. A main finding was that no adverse events or increased worrying was reported in conjunction with play sessions. Therefore, the intervention is regarded as safe, feasible, and acceptable as reported by participants and their primary caregivers and a possible means of increasing participation and independence in children with a cancer diagnosis.

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder marked by socio-emotional deficits, and difficulties with pretend play skills. Play skills are related to processes of adaptive functioning and emotion understanding. The present pilot study implemented an in-person pretend play intervention to school-aged children (ages 6 to 9 years, intervention group = 18, control group = 7) diagnosed with high-functioning ASD (HF-ASD), to increase children’s cognitive and affective play skills, and emotional understanding abilities. The intervention consisted of 5 weekly sessions, 15–20 minutes each. The intervention group significantly increased in imagination and cognitive play skills, which generalized to increased skills in emotional understanding. Findings demonstrate the positive impact of a short, easily facilitated, accessible play intervention for school-aged children with HF-ASD.

Emotion/affect processes involve feeling distinct from cognition. Although creativity scholars have long recognized the importance of affect in the creative process, only recently has research investigated the role of affect in creativity. A creative act results in a creative product that is both useful (according to the criteria of the domain) and novel. A number of cognitive, affective, and personality processes are involved in a creative act. Researchers have reached a consensus about which cognitive and personality processes are important in creativity. There is less research about which affective processes are important in creativity, but there is some converging evidence. This article summarizes the current thinking in the field about what those affective processes are, how they relate to creative cognitive and personality processes, and how they are involved in different domains of creativity. The measurement and manipulation of affect are necessary to carry-out research. Both measurement and manipulation of affect are complex events that require careful procedures. The development of affective processes is important in the development of creativity. Children's play is one arena where affective processes do develop, and therefore play is an important research area. Mood and creativity is another important area of investigation. The area of creativity and psychopathology also tells us about the role of affect in creativity. As we learn more about what kinds of affective processes are involved in creativity, how they work and how they develop, then we can apply these principles to fostering creativity in children and adults.

Associative Theory is an approach to creative thinking that emphasizes the process by which disparate elements are brought together in new combinations for a useful purpose. Mednick theorized that individuals with a steep associative hierarchy would produce more common associations to a problem while creative individuals would have flatter gradients and produce more original associations. He developed the Remote Associates Test (RAT) to measure one's ability to make associative links. Recent research led to a more complex understanding of the associative process. Psychodynamic perspectives, mood induction theory, and neuroscience research are presented, and their implications for associative theory are discussed.