A review on playground behaviors - the case of children with hearing loss

Abstract

Play is an important platform for social learning experiences where children can master their social, emotional, communication and motor abilities. Play behaviors occur in many forms (e.g. pretend, exercise, rough-and-tumble play) and patterns (e.g. social, parallel, solitary play) that vary according to the characteristics of the setting, the familiarity with peers, and the characteristics of the child. Research has shown that due to the impairments in hearing and communication, children with a hearing loss (HL) present different behavior patterns at the playground when compared to normally hearing peers (NHP) . This paper aims to portrait the current knowledge about playground behaviors of children with HL, presenting some suggestions for future research.