The words Play and Specialism are often seen as opposites: how can play, an activity that adults often consider exclusively childlike, be something serious in which to specialize? Through this handbook, you will discover that play is an elective tool to support the child in the face of the - often - traumatic experience of hospitalization. Play, in fact, can counteract the perceived 'power imbalance' that children encounter when they are hospitalized. More specifically, in this handbook, we will analyze the importance of normative play and medical play, which constitute the fundamental toolkit of the Play Specialist.
– Dr. Giulia Perasso, University of Milano-Bicocca, Italy
A particularly crucial aspect of this book is the appeal to scientific evidence, which is necessary in the face of a profession that is too often fragmented and, in many parts of the world is still not regulated and certified. Through this book, professionals such as psychologists and pediatricians, as well as mothers and fathers, will see play as something to take seriously, thanks to the references to the scientific literature cited in the chapters. Empirical studies remind us how play-based interventions can bring to hospitalized children: an improvement in coping strategies, a reshaping of hospital-related stimuli that elicit anxiety (e.g., through medical play), educational opportunities, better management of negative emotions and pain in various pathologies, and, even, in some cases, a decrease in the use of anesthesia (that represents an indirect benefit for the hospitals themselves as well).
– Dr. Jacopo De Angelis, University of Milano-Bicocca, Italy