Introduction
A growing concern for educators is disruptive behavior in preschools and elementary schools. Disruptive behaviors include students’ externalized behaviors in the classroom that interfere with the ability of teachers to teach and students to learn. Preschool and elementary children are being expelled at astounding rates because of challenging behaviors such as aggression, tantrums, and insubordination. Less than 10 years ago, a 2005 national study reported that the rate of expulsions from state funded pre-kindergarten programs was about three times the rate of expulsions from K-12 programs (Gilliam, 2005). In addition, it has been reported that an estimated 15 million of the nation’s children can currently be diagnosed with a mental health disorder that can contribute to students’ disruptive behaviors.
Play therapy is a method of treatment with children in which a counselor or therapist uses a child’s fantasies and the symbolic meanings of his or her play as a medium for understanding and communication with the child (“Play Therapy Definition,” n.d.). Play therapy has been demonstrated to be an effective therapeutic approach for various problems that effect children including: abuse and neglect, aggression and acting out, attachment difficulties, autism, chronic illness, physically and mentally challenged children, dissociation and schizophrenia, fear and anxiety, grief, hospitalization, learning disabilities, social adjustment problems, withdrawn and emotionally disturbed children (Landreth & Bratton, 1999). Thus, its aim is to decrease those behavioral and emotional difficulties that interfere extensively with a child’s normal functioning.
Task
Is it not important that schools consider examining the effects of play therapy interventions to decrease disruptive students’ behaviors as these might have a tremendous impact on classroom instructional time and the pattern of failure that can follow these students into adulthood? There is an urgent need for interventions that affect the behaviors of students. Play therapy is an “empirically supported counseling intervention that is based on a developmental understanding of children and the role of play in their growth and development” (Bratton, Ray, Rhine, & Jones, 2005) and its effectiveness should be examined so that schools can address the issues and concerns of educators. Consequently, students’ disruptive behaviors will decrease which will result in positive classroom interactions and children will be better able to cope
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