Intensive short-term child-centered play therapy and externalizing behaviors in children.

Abstract

This study examined the effectiveness of intensive child-centered play therapy with children identified as having disruptive behaviors. Participants were recruited from public schools in the urban area of Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia area. A total of 24 participants completed the study: 18 boys and 6 girls aged 6 to 9 years old (M ϭ 7); 17 Australian Caucasians, 1 English (U.K.) Caucasian, 1 Asian, 3 Hispanic/ Latino, and 2 Biracial. Participants were randomly assigned: 12 to the experimental group and 12 to the waitlist control group. Children in the experimental group received 20 intensive Child-centered play therapy (CCPT) sessions: twice daily for 10 days. For each child participant, a parent completed the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) and a teacher completed the CBCL Teacher's Report Form (TRF) 3 times: at pretest, posttest, and 1-week follow-up. Results of factorial ANOVAs indicated a statistically significant interaction effect on CBCL Externalizing score, F(2, 44) ϭ 14.747, p Ͻ .001, with a large effect size of 2 ϭ .277. Results also indicated a statistically significant interaction effect on the TRF Externalizing score, F(2, 44) ϭ 4.042, p ϭ .024, with a large effect size of 2 ϭ .135. Therefore, both parents and teachers indicated that children with externalizing behaviors who received intensive CCPT showed a significant decrease in those behaviors.

The Process and Effects of Group Sandplay on the Intervention of the Children’s Problem Behaviour From the Perspective of Mentalization

“…Moreover, the therapist also sets a certain rule to protect the body and emotional safety. This can help the children better express the attack and other negative emotions (Ritzi, Ray, & Schumann, 2017).…”

General Review on Cognitive Behavior Play Therapy on Childrens’ Psychology Development

“…Most CBPTs take up to 10-12 sessions. On the other hand, most studies using the CCPT approach were more than 12 sessions, such as the study conducted by Baggerly & Jenkins (2009) which conducted 14 sessions of CCPT with homeless children, Blanco et al (2016) conducted a study on children's anxiety of 16 sessions, while Ritzi et al (2017) conducted studies on children who experienced external behavioral problems of 20 sessions. Thus, the CBPT approach is seen to address the issues of counselors in dealing with workload situations.…”

Is Individual Child Play Therapy Effective?

“…CIs that do not include a zero value indicate a statistically significant results at the p < .05 level. However, 12 of 57 comparisons, including all 6 of Ritzi, Ray, and Schumann's (2017) results, did include (or crossed) the zero value in the 95% CI calculated here. These 95% CI results indicate a different, nonsignificant, result in contrast to some of the initially published results for these 12 studies.…”