Imaginative play in children with mental retardation.

We examined the play behavior of 18 kindergarten children without mental retardation and 55 children with different levels of mental retardation, all with a developmental age of 4 to 5 years, and found few differences between the groups with regard to activity, types and quality of play, and play content. Qualitative differences as described in the literature were not confirmed. This may have been due to (a) the play situation, which was an individual contact with a stimulating adult and/or (b) the fact that MA and not CA was the standard of comparison. Consequently, mild to moderate mental retardation seems in itself insufficient reason to exclude children from play intervention programs.