This study investigated the effects of group art therapy on the social skills and peer acceptance of
pre-school age children. For this study 52, 7 year old children attending a Christian mission and a nursery
in an urban setting were administered a social skills scale. 20 children whose scores on the scale were low
were chosen to be the participants for this study.
10 of the participants were assigned to a control group and the remaining 10 to an experimental group
randomly. Each group had 8 additional children. They had high scores on the social scale and were
expected to play the role of an mediator in the assigned group. 18 children were designated as an
experimental group and 18 as a control group. The group art therapy program was offered to the
experimental group from January 7 to February 18, 2013, twice a week. The therapy program consisted of
12 sessions and each session was one hour long.
The instruments for this study included a social skills scale and peer acceptance scale. A pretest and
posttest were given before and after the group art therapy program. A follow-up evaluation was conducted
4 months after the program. Means and standard deviations were produced and compared. The data were
analyzed using Repeated measures analysis of variance, simple main effects, and Duncan's multiple range
test. The findings are as follows.
Group art therapy had positive effects on the social skills of the participants. But, group art therapy
did not have effects on the peer acceptance of the participants. And then, as the therapy program moved
through the phases such as building rapport, the participants showed more appropriate verbal expressions
and became accurate when expressing their opinions. Also they showed less hesitations. These findings
show that group art therapy had positive effects on the social skills of pre-school age children.