Currently submitted to: JMIR Nursing
Date Submitted: May 15, 2026
Open Peer Review Period: May 24, 2026 - Jul 19, 2026
(currently open for review)
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
Play Therapy for Social–Emotional Development in Preschool Children: A Scoping Review
ABSTRACT
Background:
Development social-emotional in children preschool ( ages 3–6 years ) is foundation important for skills interaction social , regulation emotions , empathy , and readiness school . Therapy play ( play therapy ) a lot used as approach intervention For support aspects this , however proof existing scientific Still scattered and diverse . Therefore that , is necessary mapping systematic to type therapy play , characteristics intervention , as well as reported results in literature .
Objective:
map proof scientific about use therapy play For increase development social-emotional in children preschool , including type interventions used , program characteristics , instruments assessment and results main reported
Methods:
article using Prisma Flow Diagram with the keywords used are effectiveness and play therapy or therapeutic play and development social and emotional and child. Used 10 Articles of the 384 articles that have been selected from 4 databases , namely : Cochrane, PubMed, and ScienceDirect, sage journal
Results:
The results of this study are a number of study about effectiveness therapy play highlight the benefits can increase aspect emotional , behavioral , and social in various group child .
Conclusions:
Conclusion : In general overall , conclusion from analysis various journal study about therapy play show that therapy This give impact positive in aspects emotional , behavioral , and social child
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