The Effects Of Therapeutic Play With School Age Children

When I was 18, I was involved in a car accident that almost took my life, this caused me to fall into depressive state while I attended college. The depression was due to not knowing who I was as a person without football. Before the accident every aspect of my life revolved around the sport, and I was highly scouted to come the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor and play football. It was this whirlwind of emotions constantly plaguing my mind by being immersed in a place that reminded me of something that I could no longer experience. With the assistance of a counselor at the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor, I was able to begin healing. This was a turning point in my life, and it was these sessions that sparked my interest in the field of psychology.

Play is the universal language of children and allows children to express their emotions and individual responses to stressful situations. Play allows children to recreate crucial events that they have experienced and provides the child with a sense of control over the outcome of their play. The presence of a non-directive adult observer during play provides a companion for the child to recall difficult experiences and memories. Medical play is a way for children to work through the process of stressful medical experiences, where children cope with stressful healthcare experiences and can achieve mastery by creating positive outcomes in play. It is vital to understand coping strategies of children, since these approaches may affect their future reactions to healthcare situations. Children who have a sibling with a chronic illness can experience vicarious medical distress and their lives can be impacted by their siblings’ chronic illness. The researchers’ aim of this study was to observe and compare the reactions to medical trauma through play of children with medical illnesses, siblings of children with medical illness, and children who were healthy and did not have family members who were ill.

The purpose of this study is to explore the effectiveness of play therapy on trauma victims. Most literature on play therapy implies that play therapy can yield to be beneficial to children who have experienced some form of a traumatic event. In this review we will discuss what is play therapy? and why it is important?

Haslam, D., Harris, S. (2011). Integrating Play and Family Therapy Methods: A Survey of Play

It has been documented that children undergoing surgery and their families experience high levels of distress and perioperative anxiety. Stress and perioperative anxiety have the potential to cause more harm on post-surgical healing, in consideration of both physical and mental health, if not addressed promptly and properly. Child Life Specialists are pediatric healthcare professionals who are able to provide interventions to help reduce anxiety and increase developmental growth within pediatric patients, provide family centered care, and facilitating therapeutic play interventions for pediatric patients, all the while in the hospital environment (Child Life Council, 2014). Child life specialists are able to meet these values and missions to create a standard of practice that the American Pediatric Association recommends in all pediatric healthcare settings (Child Life Council, 2014). Typically, when child life specialists are working with pediatric patients undergoing anesthesia for surgical procedures they are able to participate as a part of the multidisciplinary health team to provide family centered care and increase a patient and their families understanding on the medical procedure at hand. A common intervention for pediatric patients undergoing anesthesia for surgical procedures include medical play and medical preparation sessions.

(Manyande et al. 2015) in their systematic review discovered that several non-pharmacological interventions that are liable to be useful in decreasing children’s anxiety and enhancing their co-operation throughout induction of anesthesia. Distraction is an additional successful anxiety reducing method (St-Onge 2012). Different distraction strategies have been observed to be valuable in decreasing preoperative tension (Ahmed 2011). Distraction strategies (i.e., sound/video tools, books, and toys), fun transportation systems (i.e., wagons), flavored anesthesia covers, and insignificant downtime/holding before induction have likewise been utilized to mitigate anxiety (Chundamala et al.

A structured, play-based approach therapy was used throughout this semester. Therapy was conducted on Monday and Wednesdays for 30-minute sessions. Therapy sessions were broken up into four different activities or more that provided many opportunities for XX to produce verbal “yes” and production of the targeted phonemes. XX independently answered with "ya" but when the clinician modeled "yes" he would repeat "yes" with the correct production of "yes" including a final /s/ in the word. All activities were strategically planned to capture his interest and attention so he would not become frustrated and lose motivation. An example of therapy that XX enjoyed was the articulation fishing game where the clinicians would tape different phoneme photos on the back of a fish for him to produce once a fish was caught. Clinicians founds success in therapy games when turn taking and withholding objects were put into place. Due to XX’s attention span and energy, it was best if one of the activities included a movement activity to get him moving instead of sitting for the remainder of therapy. Clinicians consistently used verbal reinforcement after every correct production. A visual schedule was also incorporated for XX to stay focused followed by putting a

“Dibs in search of self” is a book written by Virginia Axline that offers a case study to describe the practice of child centered play therapy. Play therapy is a type of therapy for children, where they are able to self-heal through expressing and processing their experiences in a non-directive, natural, and uninhibited way. The book is centered on the struggles of a young boy named Dibs, who enters therapy with Dr. Axline, and begins his journey to establish his own identity, confidence, and self-acceptance. Throughout the book, Dr. Axline shows how play can be a therapeutic experience for a child because it offers a safe space and secure relationship between child and adult. It is a space where children are allowed to use play to communicate

The end of play therapy can be a difficult stage of the therapy process for children. If the termination of play therapy experience is not handled properly, children may feel rejected, punished, or experience a sense of loss (Landreth, 2012).

Play serves an important aspect within pediatric ward environments. Not only can play equipment and toys serve as therapeutic tools for patient recovery and rehabilitation, play distracts from illness realities, diminishes anxiety, and facilitates family bonding opportunities. These moments of diversion perhaps allow children’s growth and development to remain on course for physical and mental areas not directly impacted by the illness or injury, providing a sense of normalcy – not only for the children, but for surrounding family members as well.

When providing in-home therapeutic interventions for sexually abused children, I often had to implement therapeutic play as part of our routine interactions. Thus, I can say that you become tuned into children responses when evaluating if a type of play is effective or if they are responding/meeting the goals of the activity. With that being said, this is how I would answer these specific questions.

Child Centered Play Therapy (CCPT) allows these children safety and unconditional regard. Among the many therapeutic benefits CCPT offers, is a contradiction to the trauma experiences the child has lived. Although HN continues to be exposed to emotional trauma and confusing messages, he has been able to increase his level of personal safety through an integrated form of CCPT sessions. As HN continues to grow and develop, he will need support and compassion to help him navigate the conflicting messages of what behavior is expected and appropriate in the world. Child centered play therapy is an effective modality that could help him heal from the continued trauma exposure by providing a contradiction through the validation of his emotions, exploration of healthy limits, and providing him with unconditional positive

Play is a way for children to learn about their environment and how interaction occurs within. It is through trial and error that children are able to create options; follow their own interests and show “independence in thought and actions” using their knowledge and understanding (Moyles, 2005, p.3). Children develop resilience though play. However for a number of children can experience stressful occurrences during their lives and play can often be restricted. Therefore the play worker’s role in supporting children’s play is a crucial measure towards children's development. For those that work with children require the dexterity to prompt and contribute to children’s play, which can be seen as a principle aspect of therapeutic alliance.

As introduced in the article “Unstructured play for anxiety in pediatric inpatient care” it explains the various research, observations, results and methods on the importance of play and how it decreases children’s stress levels. Play and inventive exercises amid hospitalization helps children to adapt to the experiences and diminishing uneasiness (Tarroja,Catipon,Dey and Garcia,2013).According to the text one of the many responsibilities of those individuals in the healthcare environment is to address the issues of children by perceiving their apprehensions

When walking into playground one will find children in all different parts running around and screaming, whether it is in groups or alone. To an adult this may appear chaotic and even nonsensical. When in fact this “chaos” called play, is essential to child growth development, what appears to have great entropy is a very structured and beneficial component to adolescent development. Although play have both tangible and intangible facets it is often difficult to define it.  The Webster Merriam dictionary  defines play very vaguely with, “the conduct, course, or action of a game” because play is too abstract and complex.  Play is a voluntary action that improves one’s development and stimulates feelings; a reward is not usually required.  There are also different types of play, many recognize the benefits of physical play. Moreover, physical play is something that is much easier to observe and analyze. However, there is another type of play called “pretend play” it is more abstract and harder to analyze but it is crucial to child development, more specifically a child’s cognitive skills benefits as well as their social skills. “The Impact of Pretend Play on Children's Development: A review of the Evidence” are one of the several journals that scrutinizes the experiments that suggests the necessity of pretend play for child development.