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The 'make-believe' nature of play-the realisation that the player is only temporarily committed to a particular set of circumstancesmakes it a useful therapeutic device for handicapped children and adolescents who are made anxious by the 'for keeps' demands of the real world. Such children also respond to carefully structured play in which their development can proceed at an individual pace. Written by six occupational therapists, this book (whose title is misleading) contributes to an awareness of the importance of play for the 'deficit child' and to the actual implementation of therapeutic play. Shirley Michelman provides a Play Agenda to ensure that the development of sensory, perceptual and intellectual behaviour will be fostered in a balanced manner. Nancy Takata offers a model for taking a Play History for a child; based on this, an individualized Play Prescription can be devised to direct the therapist's efforts more effectively. Susan Knox, recognizing that play reflects general development, presents a Play Scale of what can be expected at different levels of maturity. Janith Hurff addresses the middle-childhood period with an inventory that determines whether a child performsfour kinds of play skills acceptably or unacceptably. Phillip Shannon is concerned with decision-making play as a means of helping emotionally-immature adolescents to choose a future occupation. In addition, there are three lengthy prefatory chapters by the book's editor. These are historical and theoretical and are of potential interest to persons like myself who find the subject of play fascinating and provocative because of its implications for an understanding of art and creativity. Mary Reilly is aware of the significance of play not only for individual therapy but in a broader sense; for example, she describes ways in which play is important to survival. She considers leisure, along with education, to be of crucial importance for contemporary social transformationand she asserts that play provides numerous opportunities for changing as well as adapting to reality. Her survey of biological, psychological and socio-cultural explanations given for behaviour of play is wide-ranging and up-to-date and the implications for play of systems analysis and game theory are included in her purview. Unfortunately, the complex subject is made more perplexing by confused syntax, faulty grammar, atrocious jargon, befuddled presentation and many minor errors. These shortcomings are regrettable, for the field of play can offer insight into many subjects, some of them of vital significance to human life.
Dissanayake et al. (Sat,) studied this question.