it sensory and emotional attributes, such as feeling sad, happy, or hurt. The highest form of doll play appears when a child is about 3 and a half years of age. At this point, the child is capable of giving the doll cognitive abilities. A distinguishing feature between doll play and social play, which includes more than one child, is the degree of control a child has. When participating in doll play, the child has full control over the situation. Influencing factors Pretend play is universal, in that it appears in many or all cultures. However, some cultures tend to disapprove it and believe that it is a form of communication with spirits or devils. These different views tend to impact the amount of time dedicated to pretend play and the themes that children interact with. Yet, although many cultures discourage pretend play, its unavoidable emergence indicates that it develops from internal cognitive abilities rather than from the external environment or observed learning. Adult intervention Gender roles Sex-typed play is generally established between the ages of 4 to 9 years. During this age, girls often take domestic and realistic roles, while, boys often lean more towards fantastical and physically active roles. The degree to which these roles are expressed has been linked to the attitudes of the parents. Children of parents who encourage sex roles and disapprove cross-sex references show more instances of sex-typed play. Although the parents' attitudes are the most influential, other adult role models such as teachers and family members can also reinforce gender play. Family structure Levels of imagination are closely related to a child's familial environment. Issues such as marital conflict and physical forms of discipline create anxiety and tension in the child's life. These have been linked to reduced occurrence of play behaviors and low levels of imagination. On the other hand, strong and encouraging relationships between the children and their parents, specifically fathers, are linked to higher rates of play and imaginative pretense. When parents introduce pretend play to their children at an early age, the children begin to imitate their actions and create their own pretense scenarios. Children also become more capable of identifying social signals, such as eye contact and referential pointing. Scripts Participants in games of make believe may draw upon many sources for inspiration. Welsch describes book-related pretend play, wherein children draw upon texts to initiate games. Children seem