A paper developed from my doctoral research was just published in the journal "Child Development." It is definitely an event worth celebrating for me. It is a sweet reward to be published in a top notch journal after working very hard in graduate school at Clark University. I'm celebrating this with my co-author Dr. Elaine Reese now at the University of Otago in New Zealand.
The paper is titled "A Good Story: Children With Imaginary Companions Create Richer Narratives" and it is about the linguistic benefits of children playing with imaginary friends. For me it is a huge honor to contribute to the academic literature that shows the developmental benefits of play.
Here is the abstract: In line with theories that children's pretend play reflects and extends their narrative skills, children with imaginary companions were predicted to have better narrative skills than children without imaginary companions. Forty-eight 5½-year-old children and their mothers participated in interviews about children's imaginary companions. Children also completed language and narrative assessments. Twenty-three of the children (48%) were deemed to have engaged in imaginary companion play. Children with and without imaginary companions were similar in their vocabulary skills, but children with imaginary companions told richer narratives about a storybook and a personal experience compared to children without imaginary companions. This finding supports theories of a connection between pretend play and storytelling by the end of early childhood.
Time to celebrate!
