Possibilities of Art Therapy in Working with Parents of Children with Disabilities ¹⁶⁶¹

Article presents results of an experiment aimed at establishing the effectiveness of art therapy techniques for parents of children with disabilities. The inquiry was the quality of life of parents caring for a child with disabilities (mental retardation, cerebral palsy, ASD and combined handicaps). The investigation triangualated both qualitative and quantitative design. Quantitatively – analytical design of educational-psychological project was saturated with data from psychometric tests administered, evaluated and interpreted by experienced clinical and counseling psychologists in a format of "before" and "after" (test-retest) of data paired and compared between each other, with regard to the statistical significance of the measured phenomena. Data were collected through the following psychometric instruments: Coping Strategies Questionnaire (SVF-78), self-rating scale for measuring anxiety STAI, existential scale, Bortnerova scale, Logo-test. Qualitative research component complements information to the quantitative survey. It is based on three data sources: 1) a written reflection of parents (research respondents), accompanied by reflections of teachers and obtained at different stages of the project, 2) focus group of parents, 3) direct interaction and communication with parents during expressive creative activities. Data were collected and evaluated independently of the findings from the quantitative survey, only in the final phase, qualitative research data were taken into account when summarizing the knowledge from the whole project. The article states the results of the experiment with respect to its representativeness isa affected by the type of sampling and also by a small number of respondents.

Keywords: pedagogical-psychological experiment, art therapy, artphileitcs, drama therapy, music therapy, expressive therapies, relaxation techniques, parents of students with disabilities, quality of life

Column: Methods and techniques