Wita Szulc

Working with dyslectic child in art. therapy room.

Wita Szulc, Andrzej Twardowski

Introduction

Dyslexia, according to the definition in Stedman`s Medical Dictionery is a problem in reading caused by difficulty in seening the difference „between letter shapes; a level of reading ability markedly, below that expected on the basis of the indyvidual`s level of over-all inteligence or ability of skills” (Stedman 1982). Dyslexia occurs in Poland among 10% of junior elementary school pupils eg. grades 0-4 (Bogdanowicz 1993).

Child with dyslexia has a level of reading ability markediy below that expected on the basis of the indyvidual`s level of over – all inteligence or ability of skills.

The predomunant theme in many papers on dyslexia is to seek the cause ot the disonder in genetic factors, language disturbance, disonders of neurophisiologii body mechanesms related to slower growth of central nervous system. From pedagogics and psychology perspective the most widely accepteol concept is linking dyslexia to the vision, hearing, motority of eyes disturbances as well as manual skills and eye to hand coordination (Koluska 1989).

The position of dyslectic child is very hard because his or her disability is unable to catch on with the school curiculum. With the introduction of teaching of reading at pre-school level the matter is even more current (Burtowy, Twardowski, 1996). Therefore early intervention of a therapist is a necessary means in order to stop of further development of the disability and other secondary disabilities.

Over the recent years we have seen a drift from the concept of pedagogic reeducation aimed at reducing the negative results of the learning process. The present trend is to prophylaxis and of the activities focused on personality aspects of the learning process (Burtowy. Twardowski, 1996). Prophylaxis one hand on enabling the ability to write and to read and on the other on eliminating negative factors from the environment. The correcting activities include improvement of disturbed psychological functions however personality functions include motivation for learning and improvement of self-esteem.

The authors are of the opinion that in the therapeutic education it is possible to apply the methods borrowed from the art. therapy field.

Art. therapy in the narrow context is the application of art. and creative process in diagnosis and therapy of psychological disturbances (Case, Dalley, 1990). However in broader meaning art. therapy is understood as a version of Culture Therapy. Culture Therapy, according to Szulc is an activity focused on an indyvidual and his her environment, taken up in order to restore or bolster health and dedicated to improve the quality of life. The uniqueness of .... application of culture media, especially arts in different forms (Szulc 1994).

Knowing the above mentioned we have considered hypothesis that art. therapy can be an effective method supporting the psychical and social activisation of dyslectic child. We have therefore taken to assesing whether it really atands to reason because the available literature have`nt revealed any examples of applying art. therapy for the work with

Wita Szulc, Andrzej Twardowski

Working with dyslexic child in art therapy room

Learning Disabilities and Dyslexia

Learning disability, an alteration in cognitive processes, can be a severely handicapping condition with broad implications for the development of a child`s self-esteem, educational achievement, and family life. A learning disability is an impairment in one or more cognitive processes such as attention, memory, visual perception, or written or spoken language (Levine, 1980). Manifestations of learning disabilities are seen in problems with reading, mathematics, spelling, or comprehension. Examples of learning disabilities include dysgraphia (difficulty writing), dyslexia (difficulty reading) and visual-perceptual disorders.

A term „dyslexia” may cover a variety of reading disorders. Slowness in processing information may be a major factor in dyslexia. For example, dyslexic children seem to identify letters so slowly that before they can recognize one letter, it has been pushed out of sensory memory by the next ones. At the same time these children seem to process sights more rapidly than sounds, so that their attention moves to the next word before they retrieve the implicit pronunciation of the first. Dyslexic children also take longer to name pictures, colors, and numbers than most children, apparently requiring more time to retrieve a label from memory.

Another problem that may contribute to dyslexic children`s reading problems is their difficulty in keeping track of the order of words. For exemple, they do poorly when asked to repeat the order of a few words or digits they have just read. This problem also affects their performance on such nonverbal tasks as repeating the order in which someone has touched a collection of colored bloks.

Child with dyslexia has a level of reading ability markedly below that expected on the basis of the individual`s level of over – all inteligence or ability of skills.

Etiologic Theories of Dyslexia

Etiologic explanations for the cluster of disorders classified as dyslexia remain inconclusive. A number of etiologic factors have been known to place a child at risk for developing a learning disability. Such factors include familial patterns, early childhood illness, perinatal injury or stress, environmental deprivations, nutritional deficiences, and stressful life (Levine, 1980). A child from a lower socioeconomic background may be at greater risk for developing a learning disability because of danger of poor health care, poor nutrition, and lack of parental models to stimultate learning readiness skills.

The predominant theme in many papers on dyslexia is to seek the cause of the disorder in genetic factors, langague disturbance, disorders of neurophisiologic body mechanisms related to slower growth of central nervous system. From pedagogics and psychology perspective the most widely accepted concept is linking dyslexia to the vision, hearing, motority of eyes disturbances as well as manual skills and eye to hand coordination (Koluska, 1989)

Dyslexic child as a student

The severity of learning disabilities may vary at different ages. For this reason, early identification and intervention is crucial for a learning disabled child to achieve academic success. Once a child is identified as having a learning disability, an appropriate school program with special education can be planned and provided.

A pupil with dyslexia finds himself in a difficult situation when he is forced to follow the school curroculum. The problem is even more sensitive for pre-school education.

Educational Therapy

The last years have seen a drift away from the concept of educational therapy that is the therapy aiming at eliminating poor performance results.

The present stance argues that the education therapy consists not only of improvement of disorder function – but also counter measures as well activities influencing personality aspects of the learning process.

The prophylaxis is not only of shaping the maturity to read and write but also to eliminate all the negative influencing factors from the family and school environment.

The correction and the reeducation are based on enabling the disordered functions engaged in the learning process while the activities directed at child`s personality include: motivation for learning and building self – esteem, eliminating fear for failure, encourading positive self – esteem.

Such a broad view of the education therapy allows for application of new methods previously not used. We argue that the art. therapy techniques qwalify for that application, in educational therapy.

Art. Therapy vs Culture Therapy

Art. therapy in broad terms is the use of art. and other visual media for therapy or treatment. Therapy involves the aim or desire to bring about change in human disorder. „A therapeutic procedure is one designed to assist favourable changes in personality or in living that will outlast the session itself” (Ulman 1961: 19). The essence of art. therapy lies in the therapeutic outcome of the activity of creating something. „The process of art. therapy is based on the recognition that man`s most fundamental thoughts and feelings, derived from the unconscious, reach expression in images rather than words”. (Dalley, ed. 1984).

„The technigues of art. therapy are based on the knowledge that every individual, whether trained or untrained in art., has a latent capacity to project his inner conflicts into visual form. As patients picture such inner experiences, it frequently happens that they become more verabally articulate”. (Naumberg 1958: 511).

Howerer, in the context of this paper art. therapy is a form of Culture Therapy, which in turn is an activity focused on human being and his/her environment realized in order to re-establish or empower well being and aimed at improving the quality of life and which uniqueness is based on the use of culture media especially of art. In other words – „Culture therapy is one of many actions directed to human and his environment, directed to improve the quality of life and aimed at recovering and powering health. Its specifity is based on the fact that culture media, particulary the art. are used to achive health manifested in well-being.” (Szulc W., 1994).

The culture therapy model in author`s comprehension is an organized cultural activity of the ill and disabled people stimulated by creative arts therapies directed to diverting of attention from traumatic states in which they find themselves, lessening of anxiety and emotional stress, to an improvement of self -–confidence and to intelectual development.

The concept of Culture Therapy has been tested and verified on 5 following rehabilitation camps organized in the years 1986 – 1990 in one seaside Polish town. The sample consisted of 350 subjects who were participants of 5 rehabilitation camps.(Szulc W., 1998).

The art. therapy as a part of culture therapy serves three purposes: recreational, educational and correctional.

The recreational function manifests itself mainly in providing leasure, recuperation, mobilizing dynamism of life escape from every day life problems and stress, bulding enthusiasm for taking up new tasks.

The educational function is based an providing additional knowledge to an individual and enhancing her knowledge base. Thus the individual acquires better understanding of the environment, is able to distinguish the important pieces, new goals and realize them better.

Lastly the correctional function is about transition of inferior assesment mechanisms and structures into superior ones. Considering the aboue mentioned functions we have concluded that art. therapy can be an effective method supporting the process of educational therapy of dyslexic child. We set on to determine whether this is true as we did not find any exemplars supporting the argument.

Case study

The research was based on a case of a 7 year old boy with dyslexia who was subiected to a long term therapeutic process. His intellectual capacities are on average level. He comes from a low-income family of six children. The dyslexia was also present at his elder brother. His father is on a government allowance and his mother is a blue-collar worker. After starting school the boy experiened difficulties in learning letters, writing and reading. Soon, the boy developed fear towards school. After going through psychological and pedagogic examination the boy was postponed for resuming school duty until 1 September next academic year school.

The art therapy sessions

Instead to go to school the boy has been attending his personel therapeutic sessions in art. therapy room belonging to Medical Academy of Poznań. The work was taken up at the request by boys`s mather who also consented the publice the research results. The therapists were the autors of the paper: the first is a culture therapist and has the licence of Famili Counselor. The second is a clinical psychologist and a special educator.

The therapeutic sessions were held twice a week and lasted 1.1/2 hours each.

The art. therapy room

There are many different styles of rooms and ways to organise the working space.

Each person enering an art. therapy room uses the room individually and forms a unique relationship with the therapist.

Each art. therapy room is formed by the forces within it and outside it. These are as various as the personalities of art. therapists, their theoretical orientation of practice, the effect of the client group as users of the service and the attitude of the institution to art. therapy.

The art therapy room exists as spaces in which what is inside a person can be put outside in an atmosphere of containment and safety, the level of which is dependent on that person`s own self-experience, the differing function and significance of the rooms and relations with the therapist as well as on our ability to maintain the experienceable structures (e.g. timing, confidentiality, care of work). (Case, Dalley, 1995, passim).

The Art. Therapy Room at Medical Academy of Poznań meets the requirements of such facilities.

Being equipped only with basic equipment provides appropriate „therapeutical space”. It comprises two separate rooms. One, which is much cozier resembles home atmosphere. There are: a table, some armchairs, shelves pictures on the walls and a magnitude of things to play with and to look at. The other room serves the purpose at art. studio. There is a big table, cartons, brushes, paints etc. The window, barred for safety reazons, howerer look out onto a yard with trees and grass, a kindergarten playground. One can see birds flying and sitting on boughs. Looking out of a window may seem to be an escape from the difficulties of every day life, but the external landscape can lead a child back into the fantasies he or she may be wishing to escape from. It was true in described case. The role at the windows view is mentioned by some Britisch scholars. The detailed description of the art. therapy studio overlooking the River Thames is a good example see: (Case, Dalley, 1995, p.32 – 35).

Working with child in art. therapy room

We commenced our yearly a schedule with a comprehensive preliminay interview with the mother and with psychological and pedagogic examination of the boy. Based on above mentioned input we established the boy`s level of motivation for participation and decided on the time and lenght at each session.

We applied mainly visual art. therapy and music therapy. Each session started with a debriefing on latest developments in the boy`s life. The interviewer pointed the conversation at the weather, time of the year, favourite games, pet activities, tv shows. In this, natural way emerged the idea of the piece of art. If the boy was not interested in doing arts, then we resorted to looking through art. albums as well as illustrated children`s books which where intended to give some inspiration to the boy. The artistic techniques encouraged the development of visual analysis and synthesis and eye – to – hand coordination. They also allowed for channeling negative emotional stress.

Music techniques were represented by games (Kaja 1995), singing songs and listening to carefully selected recordings from tape or CD.

These techniques had an relieving effect and mobilized him for taking action. An additional element of these activities was learning to play the keyboard when the boy was taught to play simple tunes.

The reading and writing exercies were included in the activities to make them natural part of the activities. The exercies were repeated 2 – 3 times, each time with emphasis on not making them tedious.

The sessions were tape – recorded to archive his conversations, singing songs, poems, music. His art. work was collected and pictures were taken. By doing this we were able to follow his progress and plan for future activities. Each session ended when the boy has completed his tasks and had no desire to continue. Our intention was not to make each session tedious. We allowed for rest periods to keep the atmosphere relaxed. The purpose was to make him understand why the session is finished and not to make him tired. We were very carefull not to put too much burden on him and allowed for short breaks. We also sought specialist (medical doctor) advice on his health. We were in constant touch with the boy`s mother who was bringing him at and back home. We obtained from her additional information about his well-being, his social life, the interactions with his siblings and his leisure. Another reason for consulting his mother was to convince her thather son`s problems with reading and writing are not the result of his laziness or carelesness but have medical grounds. Mother activly participated in some session. She was then able to conduct the some activities at home. We also wanted to encourage the mother to follow the child rather than to direct him.

Results

The boy after initial shyness had become willing to participate and showed enthusiasm and cheerfulness. He seemingly enjoyed the techniques we had implemented. Within the twelve-month duration of the project we achieved the following results:
1. An improvement in the disordered functions: perception and audiovisual analysis and synthesis, manual
efficiency and visual -–motor coordination,
2. We have nocited an improvement in boy`s self-esteem and motivation for work and persevence,
3. The initial shyness had decreased – with the increase of self-reliance in interpersonal situations with
sibiling, peers and adults.

Conclusion

In our opinion the described method has following advantages:
a) complexity of activities which were focused not only on those functions directly involved in the reading and
writing skills but also on the child`s personality and his environment;
b) the application of many forms of art. Therapy;
c) capturing the dynamics of change of personality in the process of long term art. Therapeutic activities.

The achieved results prove that art. therapy is an efficient method of working with a dislectic child and also that the method is attractive for the subject.

References

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