Preschool Imaginative Play Predisposition and its Relationship to Subsequent Third Grade Assessment

Abstract

A longitudinal study is described which addresses the question of the course of imaginative play predisposition. Preschool assessments of imaginativeness are related to third grade testing of cognitive and affective variables. A retest sample of seventy-three children were followed up some three years after the original preschool assessments of imaginative predisposition were made. Considerable support was provided for the validity of the earlier factorial multidimensional conception of imaginative predisposition. Further the early assessments were found to be predictive and strongly related to third grade expression of imagination, creativity and other related cognitive and emotional features such as reading, language comprehension, and independence and maturity.

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