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In Study 1, 48 children participated in a longitudinal study of peer play development, from infancy through preschool. Children developed play forms in the expected sequence and at the expected ages. Children showed stability in both proportion and emergence of complex play. Children's pattern of play form emergence and proportion of time in more complex play forms related to subsequent indexes of social competence. In Study 2, we assessed the peer play of children ages 10 to 59 months. One sample (n = 259) attended minimally adequate child-care centers. The other sample (n = 48) attended a model child-care center. Children in the model center showed complex play form emergence at earlier ages and engaged in greater proportions of complex play than children in the minimally adequate centers.

Beginning with the early work of Partens (1932), developmental theorists have attempted to order their observations of children's peer play into meaningful developmental sequences. Unfortunately, when only preschoolers' play is observed, Partens's and similar play sequences do not form a developmental sequence (Bakeman & Brownlee, 1980; Fein, Moorin, & Enslein, 1982). They appear as sequential steps or strategies in the development of play episodes instead of qualitative shifts that reflect change in social competence. For example, the transition between parallel and cooperative play occurs as children move from less to more involved play, not as children become capable of more complex forms of play.

Developmental sequences in play would be more meaningful if, rather than focusing entirely on changes within the preschool period, play sequences encompassed a wider age range and thus several developmental...