Infant play and the development of executive function: Implications for policy and practice

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My fellowship will be focused around assessing the theoretical and practical implications of the findings from my PhD research, and disseminating those findings to policy makers and the public. A primary aim of my fellowship will be to achieve impact through the dissemination of findings from my PhD, regarding the importance of mother-infant play. I will present my findings to the public through events such as The Festival of Ideas and The Science Festival, and through an online blog and/or an article in a magazine aimed at a general audience. I will present my findings to politicians and policy makers through one or more briefing events and contributions to written parliamentary briefings. In 2015, I undertook a 3-month fellowship at The Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology in Westminster, and I will liaise with people I worked with there to determine the best way of communicating my findings to MPs and policy makers, and to arrange at least one briefing event in London. I will measure the impact of my activities through feedback forms at events, data on distribution of magazines and written briefings, and blog view counts.I will complete the writing up of the findings from my PhD for publication in peer-reviewed academic journals. Specifically, an article describing mymain findings will be submitted to a special issue of Metacognition & Learning on preschool children's development, and a review article about the role of play in development will be submitted to Educational Psychologist or Educational Research Review. The review article will also be used to inform and develop a funding application to the ESRC New Investigators Scheme.A small portion of the time (approximately 15%) will be spent completing the analysis of some additional data collected during my PhD, which was not included in my thesis. This additional data involves mother-infant play during book reading, and the analysis could strengthen my main PhD findings and provide enhanced guidance for parents and politicians. Finally, I will engage in a small amount of teaching during the fellowship. This will improve my career prospects as a university lecturer, and develop my public speaking and presentation skills.