During the interview with Diana, we found that one of the indispensable factors within her life is play. We’ve met Charlie before and she invites us to play with her every time. Thus, play greatly influences children’s development, and the way parents and caregivers accompany and intervene during play becomes especially important. After analyzing the interview and how research informs practices, intervention, and policies, we noticed these themes interact with each other, shaping children’s development.

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    Although Diana did not mention a lot, we believe and observe that Charlie’s development process includes large amounts of play with herself, siblings, and Diana, the caregiver. These different ways of play bring many benefits to Charlie, making her memory skill cumulate as time passes. And Piaget and Vygotsky’s theory can explain Charlie’s continuously improving memory skill. Her ability to encode and retrieve information like remembering events and names weeks ago more effectively and efficiently shows Charlie developed cognitive skills like symbolic thinking and categorization. Playing with Diana gives an opportunity for her to be scaffolded by a more skilled social member.