Measuring Play Behavior in Children with Chronic Conditions – The Validation of an Ethogram for LEGO Play

Abstract

Play has an invaluable role in physical, social, emotional, and cognitive development. Children with chronic conditions are at a higher risk of play deprivation, which has adverse effects on their development. Conversely, play interventions have been shown to be successful as both prevention and treatment strategies. However, many of the currently available methods of measuring play were not developed with chronically ill children in mind, necessitating the development of a play test that is more applicable to a wider range of scenarios. The current study aims to develop and validate an objective observation instrument for play, namely the LEGO play ethogram consisting of three behavior domains: Play, Movement, and Communication. The validation was done by testing the inter-rater reliability using Intraclass Coefficient (ICC) scores. Additionally, the possibility of summarizing the data into a smaller number of meaningful components using Principal Component Analyses (PCAs) was explored. Lastly, the relationships between the behavioral measures and personality were tested in order to see if the output of the LEGO play ethogram can be related to other concepts of interest in play research. The Play domain was successfully validated, with high hopes for the Movement and Communication domain as well. Preliminary findings indicate that the data can be summarized into meaningful components that already show relationships with personality. In conclusion, play can be measured in a meaningful way using the LEGO play ethogram and relationships with concepts such as personality are already demonstrable.