Smolucha, L. & Smolucha, F. (1998).
The social origins of mind: Post-Piagetian perspectives on pretend play.
In Saracho, O.N. & Spodek, B. (Eds.).
Multiple perspectives on play in early childhood education.
New York: SUNY Press.

Piaget believed sensory-motor play and symbolic play emerge from the child's own actions in a physical world and not from social interaction. He neglected the role of Mrs. Piaget in his own children's play activities. Parten and Piaget, early researchers on children's play, both built their theories on samples from the Maison des Petits de l'Institute Rousseau. However, childrens play is more sophisticated with with adults at home than Piaget inspired studies would suggest.

El'Konin's (1978) concept of modeling is not the same as Bandura's. El'Konin viewed modeling as both adult demonstration of play such as object substitutions and also assisting the child later make those same substitutions.

Dunn & Wooding (1977) witnessed longer play periods when children interact with their moms. They found the child initiating most of the play sequences and the mom assisting in terminating the sequence.

Dale (1983), Dunn & Dale (1984), Dunn (1986) found that kids spend more time in collaborative play with moms and siblings than in solitary play, although there are wide individual differences possibly due to moms abilities to explain her pretense actions to the child.

Miller & Garvey (1984) discovered, through discourse analysis, that moms scaffold doll by with 18-38 month old daughters.

O'Connell & Bretherton (1984) reported more types of pretend play when in collaborative play with mom.

Slade (1987) found more complex play when sequences are initiated and maintained by mom.

Haight (1989) found that the percentage of play with mom decreases from 12 - 24 months of age and peer play increases from 24 to 48 months of age.

Zukow (1989) in a cross-cultural study comparing US and Mexican children found that both had higher levels of play when in collaboration with mom and siblings than when playing alone.

Fiese (1990) reported more complex symbolic play when engaged in reciprocal role-taking with mom than when playing alone.

Biezer & Howe (1992) found more elaborate pretend play in toddlers when playing with mom.

Smoluch, F. (1991, 1992) found that children preferred play with moms over peers and witnessed no cooperative play with peers during peer play sessions. At 24 months, these kids began to play with skill at mom's level of assistance; and by 28 months, they were actively directing play and mom's behavior during play. She also discovered that the inner speech children began to use in solitary play corresponded with mom's speech when scaffolding play activities.