Priya-the-OT

  Schemas, in general, are experienced by children, as strong, repetitive urges, which makes it very difficult for them to stop throwing things, or jumping from heights no matter how much you ask them to! Some schemas last for a long time or reappear at different developmental stages and others may come and go. Schemas may not always appear one at a time or in a particular order. A child may develop one or many schemas together at the same time. We looked at few schemas in the previous post. There are more schemas in that list and let's take a look at those. Common Schemas for Play (continued) Schema 5: Orientation/Orienteering Children are often seen ‘liking’ to hang upside down or to get a view from under the bed or from on top of the table. Bending over and looking backwards from in between the legs is a very common ‘act’ displayed by toddlers and young children. What they are doing here is looking at the world from a different perspective, literally.  As children grow older, it

Now, now! I’m sure I have at least of couple of readers who just raised their eyebrows and sported a puzzled look, on reading the tile on this post. ‘Schemas in Play’ is definitely not a familiar phenomenon by name, but let me explain what it is, and it will have you going, “Ah! So is that what ‘it’ is called? ‘Schema’!!” So, what are these ‘Schemas’? We have learnt to do many things from our very early years, e.g. bouncing a ball, turning a key, etc. These actions, and many more have taught us a lot of concepts. Let’s take the bouncing ball activity. If you have observed a little child throwing/dropping down a ball, you would have also noticed that he found it amusing and kept doing it again and again. If it was a rubber ball, it would have bounced back. If it was a plastic ball, well, may not that much. If it was an inflated ball, it wouldn't have bounced back at all. Now, if it was an egg, it would have broken! From this action, what can the child learn? ….that a ball