Abstract

After a brief introduction of the literature concerning play and more specifically symbolic play, this paper focuses on the description of a pool of measures of symbolic play to be used with preschool and elementary school children. These measures are referred generally as «Affect in Play Scale (APS)» and include different versions. All versions are aimed at assessing symbolic play in its cognitive and affective components with an empirical-operational approach. Namely in each one of the proposed versions, instructions, manualization, scoring, normative data and interpretative suggestions are made explicit. This paper illustrates specifically contributions to the validation of the different versions of the APS in Italian samples and possible implications for the application of the scale in clinical settings.