• Korean Journal of Child Studies
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.189-205
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• 2008

A group theraplay program for improving social competence of children in group homes was composed of 24 sessions. The researcher and a therapist accessed 5 children living in a group home and conducted one session each week for 6 months from May to September. Before the application of the program, a pre-test was conducted using evaluation measures of attachment stability, social competence, and children's behavioral problems. A post-test was performed after the end of the program and a follow-up test was carried out to determine the long term effects of the program. Results showed that the group theraplay program improved attachment stability and social competence of children in group homes and was effective in changing problem behaviors.

• Korean Journal of Child Education & Care
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.183-197
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• 2019

Objective: The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of a group program using theraplay on 2-year-olds' prosocial behavior. The changes of prosocial behavior in the process of program were also examined. Methods: Subjects were 12 infants who attended a child care center in W city. Subjects were attached to the experimental or control group. The experimental group participated in 11 group theraplay sessions twice a week. The adaptive social behavior inventory (Hogan et al., 1992) was used for pre and post tests. Wilcoxon rank-sum test was performed to verify the effectiveness of a group theraplay program. Every sessions was video-taped and recorded verbatim. The verbatim were analyzed using the Padgett (2001)'s qualitative data analysis method. Results: Infants who assigned to the experimental group demonstrated significant improvement in prosocial behavior. Their expressive behavior and compliant behavior gradually increased over the sessions. Conclusion/Implications: The present study showed that the use of group program utilizing theraplay was an effective strategy for improving prosocial behavior of 2-year-old infants.