Balancing Risk In Play For Children With SEND
By Sarah Watkins
“Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure …life is either a daring adventure or nothing.” (Helen Keller, 1903)
What is risk in play?
The term ‘risky play’ is often used in Early Years. To me, play with an element of risk is simply child directed play, play where children choose how to challenge themselves. This type of play can sometimes be uncomfortable for adults but children know exactly what they need for healthy development.
Children instinctively want to push the boundaries, explore hidden spaces, and build their knowledge of the world around them. Risk in play is individual because children learn in different ways and at different rates. For one child, taking a risk in play could be climbing a tree. For another, it could be allowing a woodlouse to crawl on their hand.
There is a clear link between a reduction of outdoor play and a rise in sensory dysfunction issues in children. Children are not challenging themselves physically as they used to and we are seeing many more problems in areas such as gross and fine motor skills, focus, co-ordination and even eyesight.
All children need opportunities for outdoor play and risk in play is crucial for healthy development.
Discrimination in play
We know through research that age, gender, and disability status has an impact on how thoroughly a child can engage in play that challenges them. (Dodd et al., 2021). For example, boys are often encouraged to take part in more adventurous and risky play whereas girls are sometimes limited.
All children can benefit from and contribute to risky play. For children with SEND, risk in play is even more crucial, because choices for these children are sometimes more limited.
Factors like reduced communication or mobility issues can certainly cause children to be more vulnerable in play, but sometimes we can put unnecessary barriers in place. In fact, research shows that children with SEND are often overly limited by adults in their play. (Caprino, 2018)
If we have lowered expectations of children with SEND, children can get used to having things done for them and feel less trusted and capable. Risk in play is an opportunity to build trust and raise expectations.
Supporting risk in play for children with SEND
When we are aware of the barriers that make it difficult for children with SEND to access play with risk, it is easier to remove these barriers, and this opens up more independence, choice, and control. Underpinning this is our communication with children with SEND and their families.
Children with SEND can be disabled by the environment, as well as adult attitudes. It can be useful to assess the space in terms of Universal Design, which aims to make things accessible to everyone without the need for adaptations or specialised designs (National Disability Authority, 2018).
The Principles of universal design
| Principle 1 | Equitable use | The play space is accessible and appealing to all, and no children are stigmatised or segregated. |
| Principle 2 | Flexibility in use | Children with a wide range of individual preferences and abilities can participate. |
| Principle 3 | Simple and intuitive use | Regardless of experience, knowledge, language skills or education level, the play space makes sense. |
| Principle 4 | Perceptible information | The children using the play space understand everything they need to. |
| Principle 5 | Tolerance for error | Hazards are minimised. |
| Principle 6 | Low physical effort | The play space can be used effectively and comfortably with a minimum of fatigue. |
The just right challenge
Pioneering occupational therapist Dr A. Jean Ayres introduced the ‘just right challenge’ in 1970, suggesting we enable children to access challenges that are not too easy and not too difficult. We can establish this through our observations. Ayres first recognised and described ‘hidden disabilities’ or ‘dysfunction in sensory integrative processes’ and this changed the landscape for many children with SEND and their families.
Children with SEND need us to be partners in their outdoor play, respecting their choices about how they want to play, and supporting them to make their own decisions. Good partnerships are characterised by trust and respect, and we need to put the child at the centre of our thinking before deciding to step in.
Clementine
Vicky Nicolson-James has a profoundly disabled daughter called Clementine, and Vicky spoke to me about the benefits of risk in play. This is a snippet of our online conversation:
“There is that saying isn’t there? I’m not disabled. It’s my environment that disables me. And it’s so true.
Sensory play has been really important from the moment Clementine was born, so that she could take on board as much learning and fun as she could.
The only thing Clem could do was roll when she was little. She used to roll off the sofa into my arms and she would just laugh her head off. And it would go on for hours. My arms would be aching, but it was something that she had control of. And she could initiate it. She’d try and roll off anything and she’d look at you with this mischievous look: “come on, we’re playing this game!” I was led by her on that.
She can’t talk. She can’t do anything in a in a typical kind of way. But she could roll. There was a massive step in the kitchen and she used to roll down it and laugh her head off. We’d all go: “Don’t roll!” And then she’d roll towards the dishwasher, open the dishwasher, and just play with the dishwasher door.
Clem was such a risk taker, but she loved it because she was free and she instigated it and she had control over it.
Risky play is an effective route to fun and learning. The power for Clem to be in charge of her own fun, decision making and control within her limitations. If you can bring that out of someone and really develop it, it’s life enhancing, a life source and well…everything really.”
References:
Caprino, Francesca. (2018). When the risk is worth it: the inclusion of children with disabilities in free risky play. 40-47.
Dodd, H.F., FitzGibbon, L., Watson, B.E. and Nesbit, R.J. (2021). Children’s Play and Independent Mobility in 2020: Results from the British Children’s Play Survey. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 18(8), p.4334. doi:https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18084334.
Keller, H. (2018). The story of my life. Seattle: Amazon Classics.
National Disability Authority. (2018). The 7 principles | Centre for excellence in universal design [online], Universaldesign .ie . Available at: http: / /uni versa ldesi gn .ie /What -is -U niver sal -D esign /The- 7 – Pri ncipl es/.
