By Dave DeFusco

Play is a universal, cross-cultural and necessary attribute of childhood, essential for development and learning, and in two studies, Dr. Amiya Waldman-Levi, director of scholarship and research in the Katz School’s Occupational Therapy Doctorate, found that fathers play an outsized role in their child’s development by their involvement in joint play.

“We focused on fathers because they get less attention in research even though their involvement in child-rearing has grown over the past few decades,” said Dr. Waldman-Levi. “They play like their child’s play partner. Sometimes you see it in how they act silly or mischievous to make play more fun. Mothers, on the other hand, tend to emphasize education in play.”

In the article, “Understanding Father-Child Joint Play Experience Using a Convergent Mixed-Methods Design,” published in the American Journal of Occupational Therapy (AJOT), Dr. Waldman-Levi and her colleagues, Dr. Laurette Olson of Iona College and Amber Cope, a Ph.D. clinical psychology student at Long Island University, found that a father’s support of a child’s playfulness, as measured by the Parent/Caregiver Support of Child’s Playfulness (PCSCP) assessment tool, was an accurate predictor of the child’s playfulness, regardless of the child’s gender and the father’s level of education.

The fathers in the study saw play as an opportunity to build and sustain the father-child relationship. They also observed and adapted to their child’s play preferences, noting changes in play when their child played alone versus with them, and the ones who saw themselves as playful aimed to incorporate positive experiences into their child’s life. The study emphasized the importance of the reflective capacity of parents—their ability to consider their own thoughts, experiences and actions—which significantly influences a child’s social-emotional development, particularly in the context of joint play.

In a 2023 paper, “Father-Child Playfulness: A Secondary Analysis of a Multiple-Baseline Single-Subject Study of Three Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder,” also published in AJOT, Dr. Waldman-Levi and Dr. Heather Kuhaneck, a professor of occupational therapy at Southern Connecticut State University, found that fathers’ support of their child’s playfulness increased but wasn’t sustained after receiving training on play via an online presentation and in Ayres Sensory Integration, which is commonly used with children, particularly those on the autism spectrum, to address sensory processing challenges and difficulties in planning and executing purposeful and coordinated movements.

Dr. Waldman-Levi said children’s playfulness fluctuated, reaching a peak after fathers received training, but none of the children maintained that change. The researchers concluded that fathers needed additional support by the therapist to learn and use new strategies to promote consistent change in child playfulness during play.

“Occupational therapy practitioners can leverage these findings to enhance their service delivery by engaging in conversations with families to better understand a parent’s perceptions and experiences,” she said. “Observing joint play in different contexts allows practitioners to gain insights into the behaviors of parents and children, fostering inter-professional collaboration with family therapists, psychologists and social workers.”