A speech by Doris H. Kearns, associate professor of Government, on "Play and Power" highlighted the annual conference of the Boston Association for the Education of Young Children (BAEYC) held here yesterday.

Two hundred Boston-area educators and graduate students attended the conference, which comprised six workshops and the keynote address by Kearns. The seminars ranged in topics from creative movement for children to day-care center programs in the United States.

Kearns, a former White House side for former President Johnson, related the development of self-centered values among politicians to the competitive games played by children. "And the masses," she said, "have become as passive as a child watching television."

Teachers were urged to work on the local level to--secure day-care centers for children by Mary Rowe, an economist who recently testified before the Senate Finance Committee on the subject. "I think it's a shame that we could ignore one-fifth of our population," she said.

"I want my mommy," continually cried two-year-old Laura, subject of a documentary film which depicted the traumatic experiences of a small child requiring hospital care: The film was used as a springboard for discussion in a seminar conducted by Colin Couture and Jan Gaffney, two members of the Children's Hospital staff.