THE EFFECTS OF STORYTELUNG AND PRETEND PLAY ON COGNITIVE PROCESSES, SHORT-TERM AND LONG-TERM NARRATIVE RECALL

In this study I explore and demonstrate the effects of storytelling and pretend play on short-term and long-term narrative recall in 4- and 5-year-old children. The focus is on the developmental differences between storytelling and pretend play, short-term and long-term inemory, encoding and inferences and their interrelationships. According to the data, there is significant differences between storytelling and pretend play In facilitating narrative recall. The data also Indicates that the ability to encode exceeded the ability to make inferences. The children were able to engage In storytelling and pretend play while at the same time they did not improve in their abilities to make inferences. This indicates that inferences required more complex cognitive skills, and were not related to the improvement of storytelling and pretend play. There was not a significant difference overall between the short- and long-term conditions. However, this study supports the hypothesis that storytelling and pretend play affects cognitive variables. I