In crisis contexts, Play isn’t just joyful, it’s a critical building block for resilience.

💡On this International Day of Play, we want to share new evidence from our ongoing longitudinal study in Rohingya camps in Bangladesh highlighting the powerful role of play in supporting executive functioning in young children, whose caregivers experience depression or PTSD.

In the camps where our study takes place, the data show that young children whose mothers experienced depression or PTSD and reported low levels of play had the lowest executive function (EF). However, when these same caregivers frequently engage in play, whether low-resource or resource-supported, their children show improved EF skills—such as attention, memory, and self-regulation.

Check out our LinkedIn post to see figures that illustrate these findings.