Exploring relationships through art therapy for children with specific learning disabilities

This bibliometric study analyzed characteristics of publications related to art therapy for children from 1990 to 2020, based on the datasets taken from Web of Science (WoS) core collections. The results indicate that the USA, Israel, Germany, UK, Australia, and Canada were six leading countries in this field of research interest. The Top 5 most influential journals were identified by the number of publications, TLCS, TGCS and by their impact factor. Five leading journals in the art therapy studies include Arts in Psychotherapy, American Journal of Art Therapy, Child & Family Social Work, Frontiers in Psychology, and Monatsschrift Kinderheilkunde. Core themes from the 87 articles focus on surrounding socialization and attachment relationship, art therapy for the well-being of children with learning disabilities, alternative intervention for art therapy, and parent-child art therapy. This bibliometric study portrayed the development of art therapy for children by means of visualization techniques. The potential issues emerging from the data will contribute to future studies in this field. Multiple methods of art therapy are applied for all children’s well-being; as such, children’s art therapy in schools can be seen as the potential trend for researchers and teachers.

Participants with and without specific learning disabilities (SLD) provided responses as to background and school features, postschool plans, dream career, and most likely job after completing school. Findings suggest that participant groups are similar across most background and school features, with apparent differences for grade level and repeating of a grade (participants with SLD older and more likely to have repeated a grade), and gender (those with SLD more likely to be male). Participants without SLD reported a pattern of postschool plans that proved significantly different, including higher rates for postsecondary education, than did participants with SLD and a lower rate for direct employment and for being “unsure.” Both groups were comparable in terms of reported “dream or ideal” job, but the pattern proved significantly different for “most likely” job. Implications for future research and practice are noted.

The purpose of this study was to examine classroom placement, inclusive versus non-inclusive, relative to the academic performance of students with specific learning disabilities in secondary content area classrooms. Fifty-seven high school students with learning disabilities were assessed using the Grade Level Short Form of the Multilevel Academic Survey Test (MAST). Their reading and math scores were examined relative to each student's grade level, number of general and special education classes attended, and types of placement (i.e., inclusive or non-inclusive setting). The results revealed no statistically significant evidence to indicate that students' academic achievement varied based on inclusive versus non-inclusive placement. The only statistically significant differences observed regarded participants enrolled in a general education literature class compared to those participants placed in a special education setting for literature. Implications for practice, limitations of the study, and considerations for future research are discussed. ********** Recent trends reveal that students with specific learning disabilities (SLD) are increasingly educated in general education classrooms, while the number receiving instruction in resource rooms or separate classes has decreased substantially (Holloway, 2001). Despite the increase in students with disabilities placed in general education settings there is limited research, particularly at the secondary level, to suggest where students with SLD achieve more academically. Of the many issues related to the integration or inclusion of students with disabilities into general education classrooms, there is none more important than the effects of placement on students' learning and social relations with classmates (Baker, Wang, & Walberg, 1995). The research literature reviewed for this study was mixed regarding whether academic outcomes for students with disabilities are improved in inclusive classroom settings. Previous research suggested that students with SLD in elementary schools achieve more academically in inclusive programs versus non-inclusive programs (Banerji & Dailey, 1995; Waldron & McLeskey, 1998). Other studies suggested that middle school students achieve more academically in inclusive programs (Rea, McLaughlin, & Walther-Thomas, 2002). For example, Rea et al. (2002) reported that students with disabilities had higher grades, fewer behavioral infractions, and attended school more often than students educated in non-inclusive programs. In contrast, a number of other studies concluded that students with disabilities achieved more in inclusive classroom settings (Baker, et al., 1995; Madden & Slavin, 1983; Carlberg & Kavale, 1980). The only certainty regarding the effects of class placement is that there is no consensus. Researchers have drawn vastly different conclusions (Carlberg & Kavale, 1980) such as: (a) Students with severe learning disabilities and emotional and behavioral disorders may achieve more in special classrooms (Carlberg & Kavale, 1980); (b) Students with disabilities may achieve more academically in programs that combine the inclusive model with the resource model as opposed to either model on its own (Holloway, 2001); and (c) Inclusive versus non-inclusive placements produce no differences in the academic achievement of students with disabilities (Affleck, Madge, Adams, & Lavenbraun, 1988; Manset & Semmel, 1997; Waldron & McLeskey, 1998). Another perspective voiced is that the frequently posed question of class placement is the wrong question to consider (Leinhardt & Palloy, 1982; Zigmond, 2003; Hocutt, 1996). Researchers taking this position point out that the evidence is inconclusive on whether students with disabilities achieve more in one instructional setting as opposed to another, and contend that questions regarding class placement for students with disabilities are at odds with a focus on individualized educational planning. …

Art therapy serves as a crucial intervention modality for children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), demonstrating unique value in emotional expression, sensory integration, and social communication. However, current practice presents critical challenges, including the disconnect between design expertise and clinical needs, unclear mechanisms of environmental factors’ impact on therapeutic outcomes, and insufficient evidence-based support for technology integration. Purpose: This study aimed to construct an evidence-based theoretical framework for art therapy environment design for children with autism, clarifying the relationship between environmental design elements and therapeutic effectiveness. Methodology: Based on the Web of Science database, this study employed a dual-track approach comprising bibliometric analysis and micro-qualitative content analysis to systematically examine the knowledge structure and developmental trends. Research hotspots were identified through keyword co-occurrence network analysis using CiteSpace, while 24 representative design cases were analyzed to gain insights into design concepts, emerging technologies, and implementation principles. Key Findings: Through keyword network visualization analysis, this study identified ten primary research clusters that were systematically categorized into four core design elements: sensory feedback design, behavioral guidance design, emotional resonance design, and therapeutic support design. A responsive therapeutic environment conceptual framework was proposed, encompassing four interconnected components based on the ABC model from positive psychology: emotional, sensory, environmental, and behavioral dimensions. Evidence-based design principles were established emphasizing child-centeredness, the promotion of multisensory expression, the achievement of dynamic feedback, and appropriate technology integration. Research Contribution: This research establishes theoretical connections between environmental design elements and art therapy effectiveness, providing a systematic design guidance framework for interdisciplinary teams, including environmental designers, clinical practitioners, technology developers, and healthcare administrators. The framework positions technology as a therapeutic mediator rather than a driver, ensuring technological integration supports rather than interferes with children’s natural creative impulses. This contributes to creating more effective environmental spaces for art therapy activities for children with autism while aligning with SDG3 goals for promoting mental health and reducing inequalities in therapeutic access.

The purpose of this research was to conduct an exploratory study to investigate any differences in the risk of developing school refusal in students with low academic achievement and students with specific learning disorder (SLD), and moreover to compare both groups to students with high academic achievement. Furthermore, we want to investigate whether or not school self-esteem, interpersonal self-esteem, and psychological control are predictive of risk of developing school refusal. The sample consisted of 125 students, 66 males and 59 females, with an average age of 12.05 (SD = .85), divided into a 36 students with low academic achievement, 58 with high academic achievement, and 31 with LSD. The results show differences in the manifestations of school refusal among the three groups. Furthermore, regression analysis has shown the relevant role played by self-esteem and perceived parental psychological control in the prediction of risk of school refusal. Educational and practical implications are discussed.

Students with specific learning disabilities (SLDs) represent a large proportion of those receiving special education services in U.S. schools, but the relationship between student-level variables and SLD identification is still not well understood. The purpose of this study was to examine the extent to which data collected as part of a comprehensive psychoeducational evaluation were associated with SLD identification status. Logistic regression analyses were used to examine how response to intervention (RtI) slope (i.e., growth rate), academic achievement, global cognitive ability, and demographic variables (i.e., race/ethnicity, gender, and free/reduced-price lunch [FRL] status) were related to SLD identification. Academic achievement (B = -0.13, OR = 0.88), race/ethnicity (B = -1.35, OR = 0.26; 0 = white student, 1 = student of color), and FRL (B = 0.94, OR = 2.57) were related to SLD status, but global cognitive ability and RtI slope were not, even though the RtI method was reported to be used during the special education decision-making process. Implications for practice, particularly related to the use of RtI, are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Dyslexia is the most common specific learning disorder. Around 5% - 15% of elementary school students have dyslexia (APA, 2013). Children with dyslexia might appear different at school and tend to get lower academic scores in comparison with their peers. Hence, this may increase the possibility for the children with dyslexia to have low self-esteem (Mash & Wolfe, 2016)because their peers’ opinions about them play an important role in affecting their self-esteem (Veenstra et al., 2007, dalam Taylor, Hume, & Welsh, 2010).The aim of this study is to give a representation about the effect of dyslexia to the self-esteem of elementary school students with the expectance to increase the awareness to detect and give early intervention to dyslexic children. The research method is literature review using articles obtained online from several databases. There were 5 selected research articles with the criteria of the participants in the study aged between 6 – 12 years old, and the used the instruments to measure specific learning disorder and also self-esteem. The result of this literature review shows that dyslexia can affect the self-esteem of elementary school students.

The purpose of this study was to visualize the paradigm and flow of child abuse studies in Korea, and to examine the concepts that were important. In this study, by examining trends in child abuse studies through keywords network analysis, the frequency trends and networks of keywords presented in previous studies were reviewed. Through this, I tried to provide implications for children's rights and comparison with other trend analysis researches. For this purpose, 5,813 keywords of 450 types from 1,203 research articles published from 2001 to 2022 were selected and analyzed using the UCINET6 program and the NetDraw program. As a result of the study, first, 'child', 'abuse', 'adolescent', 'parent', 'abuse experience', 'neglect', and 'depression' frequently appeared as the keywords in child abuse research. And, there was a slight difference in the frequency trend depending on the time period. Second, the entire network had a structure including 448 nodes, 7,588 links, and 2 components. Third, the keywords 'adolescence', 'parent', 'abuse experience', 'neglect', 'depression', 'emotional abuse', 'sexual abuse', and 'physical abuse' were keywords with high centrality. Fourth, the ego network of ‘adolescence’, ‘parent’, ‘abuse experience’, and ‘neglect’ had high connection strength between the four words, and was also strongly bound with ‘misconduct’, ‘depression’, and ‘school adjustment’. And the 'adolescence' ego network was connected to 'runaway', 'peer', 'suicidal ideation', 'suicide', and 'family', and the 'parent' ego network was connected to 'children', 'relationship', 'attachment', ' teacher', 'parenting attitude', and 'recognition' were connected. The 'abuse experience' ego network is connected to 'suicide', 'emotion', 'school violence', 'social support', and 'art therapy', and the 'neglect' ego network is linked to 'interpersonal relationships', 'teacher', ' post-traumatic stress' and 'ego-resilience' were strongly linked. Like previous studies, this study also found that the number of child abuse studies had increased since the middle of 2010, and there was a focus on exploring influencing variables. In addition to this, in this study, important keywords that penetrate the period were derived from child abuse studies, and a network of concepts connected to the keywords was identified. In addition, by discovering the focus of studies by period, it provided implications for future research and policy implementation on child abuse.

Social anxiety and disordered eating: The influence of stress reactivity and self-esteem

Background Veterans experience a transition when they return home from military service and resume life as a civilian citizen. Transition refers to service members’ passage from military life to civilian life, which often involves emotional, physical, and social changes. Aims The purpose of this participatory action research study was to address the treatment needs of transitioning veterans with three overarching goals: 1) to unite and empower veterans to contribute to the design of their own art therapy programme to meet their self-identified needs, 2) to contribute to a foundation of knowledge that will help shape future art therapy practices with veterans, and 3) to promote the advancement of art therapy within other organisations. Methods Through collective inquiry, the research team examined how veterans experience the art therapy programme in relationship to their needs and utilised PAR methods to identify ways to strengthen art therapy effectiveness. Results Participating veterans identified seven basic principles of art therapy that support healthy veteran transition from military to civilian life based on their personal experiences with art therapy and transition. Conclusions Co-research can yield rich knowledge and meaningful change by engaging the expertise of people with lived experience. Including art making as a research activity can provide a range of opportunities for researchers to engage in the creation of new knowledge. Implications for practice and research The implementation of the participatory action research framework described in this paper provides a case study illustration for other practitioner researchers that demonstrates the accessibility and value of co-research. Plain-language summary Veterans experience a transition when they return home from military service and resume life as a civilian citizen, or a resident who is no longer part of the Armed Forces. Veterans who participated as co-researchers in this study identified the term transition and described it as the passage from military to civilian live. They described that military-to-civilian transition often involved social, emotional and physical changes. The study was conducted by a group of researchers that included ten veterans of the United States Armed Forces and 1 art therapist using Participatory Action Research methodology, which brings together researchers and people who are impacted directly by the identified problem. A main goal of the study was to provide veterans an opportunity to provide input in the design of the art therapy programme where they received services. The researchers were also interested in finding new knowledge about how art therapy helps veterans. This new knowledge was meant to be shared in order to encourage more art therapy programming for veterans. The group of researchers worked together to study how they experienced services in the programme. By examining how well these services met their needs, veteran-researchers were able to recommend ways to improve the art therapy programme.

Comparing the effect of social media-based drama, music and art therapies on reduction in post-traumatic symptoms among Nigerian refugees of Russia's invasion of Ukraine

Art therapists recognise the importance of clients’ early attachment experience. The Bird's Nest Drawing (BND) is an attachment security measure with potential for research and practice, developed by American art therapists. The client draws a bird's nest and writes a corresponding narrative, the latter assisting an integrative evaluation. A systematic rating procedure currently only exists for the drawings. The present study was conducted to determine the psychometric properties of the BND after adding new ratings of the BND story using data from an earlier study with university students. The current investigators established a systematic method for coding BND stories (N = 136). Content analysis yielded five ratings, which were examined in conjunction with the corresponding drawings and existing drawing ratings, and two self-report attachment questionnaires. Four of the 11 drawing rating items and the overall attachment rating had acceptable psychometric properties, as did two of the new story ratings. However, the seven items did not inter-correlate consistently, nor yield improved internal reliability. Construct validity using the established attachment scales was not established convincingly. Results suggest a need for further development of the BND taking greater account of psychometric principles of scale development, with implications for art therapy research and practice. Plain-language summary The relationship people have with others can be greatly affected by the childhood experiences they have with those caring for them and can cause what art therapists call ‘attachment difficulties’. The Bird's Nest Drawing, first developed in America, provides a way for therapists (and researchers) to understand people's attachment difficulties. Drawings can express what is difficult to say in words. The person draws a bird's nest and writes a short story about it. Inclusion of the story is intended to provide richer information about the client and his or her drawing. It is important that the drawing and accompanying story provide an accurate view of people's attachment experiences. This is more likely if they use a tested set of instructions to rate elements in the drawing, such as how the nest is positioned on the tree. Instructions for rating drawings already exist, however no instructions existed for rating the stories people tell. In this study, we used 136 drawings and stories from a previous study with American university students, and also participants’ scores (from the same study) on well-established questionnaires about attachment relationships. We devised a rating system for the stories. Then we checked how reliable and accurate the ratings were for both the drawings and the stories. Part of this checking involved comparing the ratings with the questionnaire scores. We found that neither the existing drawing ratings nor the new story ratings were sufficient when judged by established principles for good design of assessment measures. For example, the ratings did not sufficiently fit the pattern of scores on the established questionnaires. Although drawings can be helpful in art therapy when people find it difficult to use words, we suggest that therapists and researchers exercise caution in how they use the Bird's Nest Drawing (even with stories) until it can be further developed as an assessment measure.

Individuals characterize a social anxiety disordered by individuals to fear social situations in which they anticipate negative evaluations. The impact of social anxiety, as one of the widespread mental health disorders, characterize by onset at an early age and affecting functioning in various domains of life and general wellbeing. The aim of the article was to conduct a review of scientific data devoted to parental behavior patterns and emotional response to the child in the process of socialization on the pathogenesis of social phobia. It was found that the results of empirical studies considered the pathogenesis of social anxiety and social phobia in the context of neurobiological vulnerability, psychological aspects of attachment, social learning models, and cognitive-behavioral models. The analysis of recent research points out that parental styles, relationship support, and emotional response can be factors of vulnerability to mental pathology and social anxiety disorder. Summing up, three paths of were realizing the influence of parental models of behavior on the development of persistent distress due to social phobia as an independent disorder are distinguished. The first considers the mutual vulnerability of the emotional response to parents' anxiety signals in the relationship with the child, which increases the tendency to behavioral inhibition or avoidance of the child's emotional experience during social interaction. The second path considers social phobia as the result of social learning parental patterns of emotional response and behavior. These links mediated by the child's low self-esteem, avoidant strategies and controlling parenting style as a protective strategy on the part of significant others. The third model considers the impact of social punishment or other socially traumatic experiences in the relationship with parents or the community (as models of parental image). According to such a strategy, a state of hypervigilance to social evaluation and avoiding behavior strategies bring temporary relief against retraumatization due to "punishment." These strategies reinforce dysfunctional cognitive and behavioral patterns that impair social efficacy and strengthen the fear of rejection through condemnation or devaluation in the long term. The obtained results will make it possible to expand the conceptual model of the pathogenesis of social phobia, which will contribute to the provision of psychosocial assistance and substantiate the need for further empirical research.

Early Intervention and Prevention of Students with Specific Learning Disabilities

The current study evaluated psychometric properties and network analysis of the Parental Acceptance and Action Questionnaire (PAAQ) among Arab parents of children with and without dyslexia. 419 parents of community sample children and 318 parents of children with dyslexia (CWD) completed the PAAQ, Interpersonal Mindfulness Scale (IMS), and a socio-demographic checklist. Exploratory Graph Analysis (EGA), Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA), and Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) were used to determine the factor structure of the PAAQ. Cronbach's alpha was used to estimate internal consistency. Finally, the centrality measures are derived from network theory (betweenness, closeness, and strength). In both community and CWD samples, the author identified similar factor structures encompassing three dimensions: proactive behavior and adaptability in parenting, acceptance of personal parenting-related inner experiences, and acceptance of the child's negative inner experiences. Item 18 was removed due to poor factor loading in both samples, resulting in a final version of the PAAQ with 18 items (instead of 19 items). This factor structure was revealed through EFA analysis and confirmed by CFA and GFA, demonstrating the scale's consistency. For all subscales in both samples, Cronbach's alpha was more significant than 0.7, indicating suitable internal consistency. Regarding centrality, both the community and dyslexia groups had similar centrality measures in some items. However, the dyslexia group generally showed higher betweenness values than the community group in several items (e.g., PAAQ.6, PAAQ.7). The PAAQ is a suitable scale for use with Arabic parents, including community samples and parents of children with dyslexia.