Play in Children Experiencing Challenges at School – Neurodevelopment Assessment Unit (NDAU)

Many young children experience social, emotional, or cognitive challenges that affect their everyday lives, but don’t meet the criteria for a formal diagnosis or specialist support.

These children are often overlooked, despite being at greater risk for developing more serious difficulties later in life.

Memory — A memory assessment taking place at the Cardiff University Centre for Human Developmental Science (CUCHDS).

At the Neurodevelopment Assessment Unit (NDAU), we work closely with schools to identify children aged 4 to 7 who are experiencing difficulties.

Families are invited to visit us at the Cardiff University Centre for Human Developmental Science to complete tasks that are designed to assess each child’s unique strengths and needs across areas, such as attention, memory, language, and social understanding.

Project aims

We use a variety of playful methods in the NDAU, and members of our team are particularly interested in how children who are experiencing different challenges engage in play.

Our team are investigating:

the different play behaviours children engage in when they play with their parent or carer
differences in children’s self-concept of their own playfulness
how children depict aspects of family life during their play using doll house play methodologies

By observing children’s play and using playful methods to help them tell us about themselves and their experiences, we aim to deepen understanding of how families and practitioners can harness play to support children who face daily challenges.