What is a key characteristic of play in infants?

Play in infants is primarily characterized by exploratory play, which involves the infant engaging with the environment through their senses and movements. During this stage of development, infants learn about their surroundings by crawling, reaching, grasping, and manipulating objects. This type of interaction is critical for cognitive, motor, and sensory development, allowing infants to discover cause and effect as they experiment with different objects and textures.

Imaginative play, constructive play, and cooperative play typically emerge at later stages of development. Imaginative play often appears in early childhood when children begin to use their creativity and pretend scenarios, while constructive play involves building or creating and is more common in preschool-aged children. Cooperative play requires social skills and interaction with peers, which develops later when children are better able to communicate and work together. Thus, exploratory play is the defining play characteristic of infants, laying the foundation for more complex forms of play as they grow.