Digital Commons Network^™

Imagination Station: Activating Creativity In Children With Disabilities, Allison Dukes

Expressive Therapies Capstone Theses

Play is a major topic of conversation when discussing childhood development is associated with creativity and imagination. Although there has been some research involving the creative process amongst children, little has been explored in regards to expressive arts as a technique to further current studies on play. This paper presents a combined method of intermodal expressive arts therapies and play therapy techniques to aid in the fostering of creativity within children with disabilities by utilized the theoretical framework provided by the Expressive Therapies Continuum (ETC). A current review of literature on the ETC, cognitive functions, and expressive arts modalities is …

A Dance Movement Therapy Warm Up Method In Bereavement Peer Support Groups For Children, Amanda Moffitt

Expressive Therapies Capstone Theses

Every year in the United States, millions of children experience the death of a parent (Owens 2008; Stikkelbroek, Prinzie, de Graaf, ten Have, and Cuijpers 2012). Parental death in childhood can lead to severe impairments in physical and mental health, as well as overall life satisfaction, because of the potential traumatic nature of the event (Li, Vestergaard, Cnattingius, Gissler, Bech, Obel, & Olsen, 2014; Marks, Jun, & Song, 2007; Perkins & Harris 1990). Children have previously been neglected in regards to grief theory and the traumatic experience such loss impacts children. Recently, research has demonstrated that self-regulation is instrumental in …

Using Children's Books To Build Empathy In Children, Kate Solow

Expressive Therapies Capstone Theses

An art therapy group was carried out to assess whether children’s books positively affected children’s ability to empathize. The group consisted of one therapist and three children aged 8, 9, and 10 in a therapeutic classroom. The group met for 30 minutes once a week. The children listened to a story, followed by a discussion and a related art project. Observations from each session were recorded in a spreadsheet. The results suggest that reading and discussing the books allowed the children to have a better understanding of their own and others’ emotions.

Radicalizing Role Method: A Literature Review On The Use Of Role Method With Elementary-Aged Youth Within Urban Communities, Kimberly Kidders-Montoya

Expressive Therapies Capstone Theses

This paper describes the use of Robert Landy’s role theory and Role Method for elementary-aged youth in urban communities. Material is presented with discussion on the needs of young people, or individuals under the age of 18, in urban communities. This research examines current literature using current drama therapeutic methods with young people and the theoretical and methodological foundations in Landy’s role theory and Role Method. This paper uses a critical theory lens to critique current practices as well as examining current American Psychological Association’s (APA) code of ethics; and the North American Drama Therapy Association’s (NADTA) code of ethics, …

Once Upon An Assessment, Shannon Culligan

Expressive Therapies Capstone Theses

For this research Six-Piece Story Making, an assessment created by Mooi Lahad (2006), was used to elicit a more creative way of assessing risk daily with children. After reviewing the literature on the topic of using storytelling as a therapeutic intervention with children, it was found that there is a lack of information around using storytelling within a partial hospitalization environment. This research began to explore the possibilities of using storytelling in a partial hospitalization setting with male and female children aging in range from 6 to 13 years of age. It was found that within a partial hospitalization program …

The R.A.I.N.E. Method, Ramanda Brockett

Expressive Therapies Capstone Theses

The imagination-in-service of empathy also creates a context for measuring children’s social, linguistic, comprehension, and organizational skills through the clinical observation of pretend play (Hendler-Lederer,2002). Both sociological insights carry heavy implications for the use and impact of imagination for both adults and children as well as individuals and clinicians. On the educational field, there is a wide academic debate about the disuse of imagination in the current educational system. Finally, in authentic movement, there is a strong link between imagination and affect where, not only is the clinician imagining the emotions that accompany the affect being moved by the individual …

How Expressive Arts Therapy Benefits Children Living With Acquired Brain Injuries, Stacia Boynton

Expressive Therapies Capstone Theses

This literature review explores the positive effects of using an intermodal expressive arts therapy approach when working with children living with an acquired brain injury (ABI). This review outlines symptoms and difficulties children living with ABI experience, it introduces general brain structure, and provides evidence for the potential use of intermodal expressive arts therapy with this population. This review is intended as a tool kit for therapists who are not experienced in working with this client population. It will share research on surrounding expressive therapy modalities such as art, music, dance, drama, and expressive arts therapy; also referred to as …

The Efficacy Of Dance/Movement Therapy For Trauma Affected Youth: A Literature Review, Caitlyn Goggin

Expressive Therapies Capstone Theses

As the quantity of trauma affected children rises so does the need for effective treatment interventions to resolve trauma symptomatology so children may resume successful development. Up until now, the most popular interventions to aid children who have experienced trauma, have been “top down approaches” such as cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). Top down approaches focus on processing and altering thought content to alleviate symptoms of trauma. However, recent research indicates that top down approaches do not relieve the somatic and biological symptoms of trauma that account for a majority of trauma symptomology. The research of Duros & Crowley (2014) suggests …

Discovering How Dance/Movement Therapy And Movement-Based Therapies Aid Children Experiencing Embodied Grief, Laura Remillard

Expressive Therapies Capstone Theses

Current studies in children’s grief and bereavement suggest that creative arts therapies support children through their healing process after experiencing the loss of a loved one. However, there is not much research to support the use of dance/movement therapy (DMT) or movement-based therapies with this specific population. This literature review explored children’s grief and bereavement and focused specifically on embodied grief--how and where grief is held in the physical body. Furthermore, this literature review expanded more on the use of DMT and movement-based therapies with children experiencing embodied grief, as well as expanded upon body-based approaches to help these individuals …

Community Arts To Promote Cohesion And Gratitude In A Boston Based Children’S Hospital, Katherine Jordan

Expressive Therapies Capstone Theses

This paper explores the impact of a gratitude based community arts engagement project in an urban children’s hospital. The arts have the power to connect communities and practicing gratitude has protective mental health factors. This project connected these two ideas by implementing a hospital-wide gratitude tree project. Staff, patients, families, and visitors were engaged in adding their gratitude to the communal trees over a period of two months. The results of this investigation display the connecting power of the arts and explores the impact of environment in regard to an art enhanced hospital setting. The results of the study revealed …

Art Therapy With Homeless Children: Role Of Art Therapy On Complex Trauma Event, Eroo Kim

Expressive Therapies Capstone Theses

This research focused on the role of art therapy on complex traumatic events of children and

explored how art therapy interventions can benefit children with trauma. Complex trauma is defined as a traumatic, chronic, and interpersonal event that begins in childhood, which later may foster a child to develop and maintain a system of strict maladaptive defenses and display symptoms such as excessive temper, regression, aggression, and overly demanding attention. Since a trivial, insignificant event on an adult’s eyes may not necessarily be the same insignificant event on children, there is a difficulty in defining trauma for children. This capstone …

Impact Of A School-Based Mindfulness Intervention On Children’S Self Regulation, Elizabeth Chaney

Doctoral Dissertations

When schools recognize the importance of social-emotional learning and support young children’s self-regulation skills, students are also likely to see improvements in their academic potential. Youth who encounter the stressors of toxic stress and thus, who may have more challenges developing self-regulation competencies, may particularly benefit from classroom environments where self-regulation and coping skills are emphasized. The current study examined the impact of a school-based mindfulness program on self-regulation and mindfulness skills of 42 children in two fourth grade classrooms that were assigned to either a Mindfulness Group (n = 30) or to a Control Group (n = 12). The …

Aiding Families With Children With Disabilities In A Refugee Crisis: Kosovo Case Study, Benson Gunther, Dr. Blake Hansen

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Families that have children with disabilities, specifically emotional/psychological/social disabilities (i.e. Autism, Down Syndrome, and other cognitive/neurodevelopmental disorders), encounter seemingly insurmountable distresses on a day-to-day basis in times of peace, let alone in times of emergency. These families depend heavily upon a consistent, well-established home environment with a precisely-calculated daily routine and access to key resources that keep their family unit intact. When rising political turmoil or threats of domestic violence culminate to jeopardize the safety of the population at-large, these families are compelled to abandon their homes and all the security that their homes provide. And while packing-up and fleeing …

Application Of The Imb Model To The Reported Intake Of Fruits And Vegetables Of Native American Children, Rachel C. Sinley, Julie A. Albrecht

Journal of Health Disparities Research and Practice

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the applicability of the Information-Motivation-Behavioral Skills (IMB) model to identify variables that are associated with fruit and vegetable intake among Native American children. A cross-sectional study design was employed with a convenience sample of 92 English-speaking caregivers of Native American children between the ages of 2 and 5 from several tribes representing the Midwest, including Omaha, Santee Sioux, Ponca and Winnebago. Caregivers completed an IMB model survey, fruit and vegetable food frequency questionnaire and demographic survey. Multivariate linear regression and path analysis were conducted to assess association between model constructs and fruit …

Through The Eyes Of Children: Social Oppression Under Nazi Rule From 1933 To 1938 Reflections Of Three Holocaust Survivors, Lauren Ashley Bradford

The Gettysburg Historical Journal

This paper discusses the experiences of three Berlin native child survivors of the Holocaust through analysis of their oral testimonies. Their unique voices help shed light on the various ways in which lives were forever changed for those who were legally identified as Jewish in Nazi Germany by way of social oppression. This paper highlights three key years that each survivor discussed at length in their testimonies: Hitler’s Chancellorship in 1933, the Nuremberg Laws in 1935, and Kristallnacht in 1938. Ultimately, this paper argues for the importance of these years and labels them as being a crucial part in the …

A Mission At 311, Nan Li

Theses and Dissertations

My thesis intends to look at how the aftermath of Holocaust has a tremendous life-changing impact on the children of Holocaust survivors, and to explore how these people has carried these misfortunes and burden to be resilient and joyful in their everyday lives.

The Effect Of Parental Death On Children’S Wellbeing, Monil S. Shah

Theses and Dissertations

I study the effect of parental death on a child’s wellbeing, including workforce participation, education, marital status and health. Using propensity score matching, I find that parental death leads to worse outcomes for children who lose a parent compared to those with two parents, with negative effects exacerbated for daughters.

Melodic Contour Identification And Speech Recognition By School-Aged Children, Michael P. Morikawa

Dissertations, 2014-2019

Using the Sung Speech Corpus (SSC), which encompasses a single database that contains musical pitch, timbre variations and speech information in identification tasks, the current study aimed to explore the development of normal-hearing children’s ability to use the pitch and timbre cues. Thirteen normal hearing children were recruited for the study ages ranging from 7 to 16 years old. Participants were separated into two separate groups: Younger (7-9) and Older (10-16). Musical Experience was taken into account as well. The Angel Sound ™ program was utilized for testing which was adopted from previous studies, most recently Crew, Galvin, and Fu …

The Kids Are (Going To Be) Alright: Authorship Of A Post-Divorce Narrative, Caroline Hamby

Educational Specialist, 2009-2019

This integrative literature review explores the suitability of narrative therapy for children ages 7-12 coping with divorce and family transition. Charting the history of research on post-divorce children, the review discusses common negative and positive post-divorce outcomes for children in academic, financial, and socio-emotional domains. It links the fundamental objectives of narrative therapy to the corresponding needs of post-divorce children and families, namely emotional security, internal control, and personal agency. It posits that narrative therapy is a modality uniquely situated to address these concerns and amplify the often-ignored voices of children otherwise lost in marital chaos. The developmental considerations of …

Evaluating The Benefits Of Art Therapy Interventions With Grieving Children, Meagan Dye

Educational Specialist, 2009-2019

Art therapy has numerous benefits when working with a variety of populations and many studies support the efficacy of art and art therapy interventions. This research paper aims to specifically assess the impact of a formal, semi-structured, individual art therapy intervention with grieving children. The researcher reviewed the records of thirteen clients who worked with three art therapists at a small palliative care agency in Central Virginia. Clients were between the ages of 5-18 years old and were assessed to gauge their positive and negative affect before the art therapy intervention and after the sixth session. Each therapist worked with …

Parental Mindfulness And Stress As An Influence On Clinically Referred Children’S Emotional Competence, Ahmad Baiyasi

Honors College Theses

Children acquire the skills of emotional competence in a variety of contexts, and demonstrate through their behavior the skills evident of emotional competence. Such skills include a sense of well-being, adaptive resilience in the face of stressful circumstances, and the ability to manage their own emotions (Saarni, 2000). Mindfulness, a relatively new construct in the study of human development, is nonjudgmentally paying attention to relevant aspects of our experiences, including our own emotions and thoughts (Ludwig & Kabat-Zinn, 2008). Stress is emotional or mental strain resulting from adverse or very demanding life circumstances, such as our living environment (Lunney, 2006). …

Social Work Trauma Interventions: Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, Kassie Baumann

Senior Honors Theses

According to Lynne Weilart (2013), in her article on the reasons why people seek out therapy, trauma is the number one reason people attend counseling. Many different trauma-informed approaches are designed specifically to address the consequences of trauma and to facilitate healing. Some of these approaches are as follows: Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT); Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT);Mentalization Based Therapy (MBT); Trauma Systems Therapy (TST); Trauma Assessment Pathway (TAP); and Attachment, Self-Regulation, and Competency (ARC) (de Arellano, Danielson, Ko, & Sprauge, 2008). The effectiveness of each trauma intervention will be examined. DBT is one of these trauma interventions that is growing …

Urlend Survey Finds Future Teachers Largely Unprepared For Children On The Autism Spectrum, Jolynne Lyon

Blog Posts

Blog post is about a survey that discusses whether or not teachers are prepared for students on the autism spectrum.

Children's Role In Termination Of Parental Rights Proceedings, Makayla Okamura, Michael Kummerman

Brigham Young University Prelaw Review

People often argue that young children - especially vulnerable children - cannot gauge their best interests very well. But it turns out that there is success when courts allow children to have a voice in matters of child welfare cases. Various cultures and ideologies see child accountability in different ways. Considering those cultures and values and then factoring in the experiences of judges reveals that child are more capable of determining there best interests than currently policy acknowledges. Though the decision should not rest solely on the child's input, it should be heavily weighted when a judge makes a child …

Finding Nemo, Findng Dory, Finding Ourselves: How And Why We Teach Our Children To Think About Disability, Stacie Klinowski

English

My project, a critical thesis titled “Finding Nemo, Finding Dory, Finding Ourselves: How and Why We Teach Our Children to Think About Disability,” investigates how representations of disability within children’s media transcend these texts and contribute to our society’s construction of disabled subjects. By first looking at historical traits of children’s literature in Grimm's Fairy Tales and The Trumpet of the Swan, I establish that the didactic function of this genre reproduces the values of the cultures in which they are written while it also attempts to instill social ideals that will guarantee 'progress.' Representations of disability in these texts …

A Call For Compliance And Continued Efforts To Insure The “Best Interest” Of Indian Children In South Dakota, Tamee Livermont

Honors Thesis

The Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) was implemented in 1978 to protect the best interest of American Indian children and families from the unwarranted removal of children from the homes and communities. 40 years post-ICWA, the state of South Dakota still struggles to insure proper and complete implementation of this law. This undergraduate thesis examines the history and current status of ICWA in South Dakota and the role of the South Dakota Department of Social Services in implementing ICWA and working with tribal nations. Finally, this thesis is a call for compliance by the state of South Dakota and continued …

Pornography As A Public Health Issue: Promoting Violence And Exploitation Of Children, Youth, And Adults, Elisabeth Taylor

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

The pornography industry is expanding exponentially as a result of ongoing technological advances. The ability to stream videos over the internet and the ubiquity of the smart phone have meant that pornography producers are able to use algorithms to target potential consumers, to cultivate new sexual tastes and to deliver content to a more diverse audience over mobile devices. The advent of virtual reality pornography with interactive sex toys and sex robots imbued with artificial intelligence promises to unleash a further step-change in the extent to which pornography influences ‘real-world’ sexual culture. The critical analysis of pornography undertaken over decades …

A Product Of Childhood: Accounting For Age In The Miranda Analysis, Ariana Rodriguez

Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review

One of the most polarizing areas of constitutional criminal procedure is that relating to police interrogations and confessions. While the Fifth Amendment guarantees a number of protections from self-incrimination and the inherently coercive nature of criminal investigation, these Constitutional promises are more likely to go unfulfilled when the accused is a child. This Article thoroughly examines the current law’s use of the “totality of the circumstances” test in deciding whether a valid Miranda waiver occurred or whether a juvenile has been taken into custody and, more importantly, explores why this current test remains an inadequate solution for protecting children’s Miranda …

The Importance And New Interpretation Of Physical Education In The Elementary School Setting: Health And Wellness Education, Kimberly Ackley

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

Despite substantial evidence of the countless cognitive and physical benefits physical education in elementary school classrooms provides, some schools in the United States do not offer an adequate combination of both physical activity and education about nutrition, health, and wellbeing. To fully encapsulate the subject of Health and Wellness Education (HWE), students must not only be engaged physically outside of the classroom, but they must also be engaged holistically with an equal emphasis on mind, body, and spirit inside the classroom. This student engagement would include daily lessons regarding mental wellbeing, a consistent and reserved period for physical activity, and …

Violence And Aggression In School Settings, Barbara Katic

Journal of Critical Issues in Educational Practice

Violence and aggression continue to cause harm to American schools and communities, which has been visibly illustrated by the continual perpetration of school shootings. In order to prevent these situations for occurring again, the etiology of violent and aggressive behaviors must be studied. Utilizing an ecological perspective, both the risk factors and protective factors of violence and aggression, also known as a dual strategy approach, are examined within an educational context. Specific risk factors reviewed include weapons exposure and social rejection, while protective factors reviewed include school connectedness and pro-social relationships. Implications regarding the prevention of violent and aggressive acts …