| The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of the functional complexity of a play environment upon the amount of motor, social, and motor-social activity of developmentally delayed preschool children. Twenty-three children attending an early childhood education program under the guidance of the Franklin County Board of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities, Columbus, Ohio, were chosen and randomly assigned to one of six groups for participation in the study. Three playgroups were randomly assigned to the low complexity environment (i.e., two metal trestles and one aluminum board) while three playgroups were randomly assigned to the high complexity environment (i.e., two metal trestles, two aluminum boards, one ladder, and a large plastic box). Each playgroup was exposed to the respective play environment for 11, 15-minute sessions during a three-week period. A videotaping and audiotaping procedure was used to record the 11 play sessions. The amount of time (i.e., number of 10-second intervals) each child engaged in eight motor, social, and motor-social behaviors during two early days (days two and four), two middle days (days six and seven), and two late days (days ten and eleven) of the study was recorded from the videotape by eleven trained observers. The collected data were statistically analyzed by eight separate two factor factorial analyses of variance with repeated measures.;The major hypothesis of this study stated there will be no differences in the amount of motor, social, and motor-social activity of the developmentally delayed preschool children when playing in a low complexity environment as opposed to a high complexity environment during the early, middle, and late days of an 11-day period. The results indicated that the developmentally delayed children exhibited more motor activity on the apparatus in the high complexity environment than in the low complexity environment and more motor-social activity off the apparatus in the low complexity environment than in the high complexity environment. Other significant results were that more motor activity on the apparatus and more motor activity off the apparatus occurred during the early days of the study than during the middle and late days. More extraneous activity occurred during the late days of the study than during the early days while less motor-social activity off the apparatus occurred during the early days of the study than during the middle and late days of the study. |
