This study is to examine the effect of preventive group art therapy program on children's emotional
intelligence. The subjects of this study consist of 16 children ages 6~7 selected from an early childhood
education facilities in Seoul. Among them, 8 children were in the experimental group and the other 8 were
in the control group. The experimental group underwent 15 sessions of a preventive art therapy program,
twice a week for 1 hour each time. In order to verify the effects of the program, differences between the
experimental and the control group were analyzed pre-scores and post-scores by using the research tools,
'Emotional Intelligence Rating Scale for Preschool Children' designed by Kim Kyoung-hoe(1998). The results
of this study can be summarized as following. First, based on the analysis of the effects of the preventive
group art therapy program, the experiment group that experienced the program was much more improved
in the scores of emotional intelligence. Second, based on the analysis of the effects of the preventive group
art therapy program, the experiment group that experienced the program was much more improved in the
scores of the ability to use self-emotion, to perceive and concern others’ emotion, and to make good
relationship with teachers and peers, when compared to the control group. And the experiment group that
experienced the program was not improved the ability to recognize and express self-emotion and to control
feelings and impulsive actions, when compared to the control group. The results indicates that the
preventive group art therapy program affects on development of emotional intelligence and the abilty to use
self-emotion, to perceive and concern others’ emotion, to make good relationship with teachers and peers of
children. Conclusively, the preventive group art therapy program might have positive effects on developing
emotional intelligence of children. Therefore, this study is meaningful in that it shows a way to provide
positive emotional experiences to children in their emotional development phases of early childhood, and
that it presents the preventive art therapy program effective to develop the emotional intelligence which
will have a life-long influence.