Watch Me Play!
involves the parent watching their child play for about 20 minutes a couple of times a week. Parents are encouraged to let their child take the lead in play while they watch and talk to their child about their play. Later, parents reflect with another adult about what they have observed.
Watch Me Play! was initially developed for children in care, and was found to be helpful to their parents and carers. We are interested to find out if it can also be helpful for parents of children with developmental delays. We are therefore running a study to find out what parents think of the programme.
Parents of young children with developmental delay who took part have said:
“I think the 5 weeks went brilliantly. I think he developed massively. We got much more out of it than the speech therapy course that we were doing at the same time. His speech came along, he engaged a bit more, he concentrated a bit more. I saw his language use develop, and his use of words and his trying to say words come along a lot more.”
“He wants to do Watch Me Play!, he says Watch Me Play!, Watch Me Play!. He tries to come and do Watch Me Play and play together, which he wasn’t doing before.”
What does it involve?
This study involves completing five weeks of Watch Me Play! After a 1-hour introduction, a trained practitioner supports the parent once a week to do Watch Me Play! with their child. Parents also do play sessions with their child twice a week. All support is 1-1 and takes place remotely via Zoom or Teams.
For the research, parents will be interviewed and asked to fill in some questionnaires before and after Watch Me Play!
If you are the parent or carer of a child aged between 0 and 6 years who has a developmental delay (other terms may be global developmental delay, autism, learning disability, Down’s Syndrome, or any combination of these) and interested please get in touch. You must also be able to do Watch Me Play for five weeks over March and April 2022.
Please contact:
Ashley Koenig, MSc Researcher: [email protected]
Freya Westlake, DClinPsy Researcher: [email protected]
