Child-friendly activities to assist young children in the identification of feelings: A core component of CBT-based anxiety intervention programmes

[摘要] ENGLISH SUMMARY: The high prevalence of untreated anxiety symptoms amongst children worldwide, and in South Africa in particular, as well as the possible long term consequences thereof, underscore the need for prevention and/or early intervention programmes. Researchers have found that intervention programmes that are based on Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) are effective in addressing childhood anxiety and that early intervention seems to make a difference. This research project aimed to determine whether two child-friendly activities, namely the child-friendly feelings card sorting activity and the child-friendly feelings and bodily signs activity could assist a group of vulnerable young children to firstly identify basic feelings, and secondly to identify accompanying bodily signs associated with feelings. After the necessary ethical clearance was obtained and the necessary permissions were granted, data collection commenced.The participants consisted of a total number of 42 young children (aged 7 to 10 years) from a poverty-stricken South African community. Individual data collection sessions were conducted on the premises of a collaborating non-governmental organization (NGO) in the community in isiXhosa, English or Afrikaans or a combination of these languages, depending on the individual participant's preferred language(s). Since the researcher is not proficient in isiXhosa, a trained isiXhosa-speaking interpreter assisted with data collection.This is a descriptive study, based on mainly qualitative data. The following data collection components were delivered in chronological order per individual participant: 1) Biographical questionnaire; 2) Introductory child-friendly drawing component to create a child-friendly atmosphere; 3) Activity 1: The child-friendly feelings card sorting activity; 4) Activity 2: The child-friendly feelings and bodily signs activity; 5) Semi-structured interview; and 6) Concluding favourite story-telling component.The following two tendencies emerged from the data collected by means of activity 1 (the child-friendly feelings card sorting activity): Firstly, on most occasions the feeling that a participant ascribed to a character in a narrative matched the feeling as intended by the researcher. Secondly, on most occasions a participant's own emotional response matched the feeling that he/she ascribed to a character in a narrative. The following can be said regarding the main results obtained by means of activity 2 (the child-friendly feelings and bodily signs activity): While all 42 participants could identify accompanying facial expressions for at least one of the four basic feelings, only 2 (4.8%) of the participants could identify bodily signs that accompany a feeling.This study added value in the following ways: Firstly, the results indicated that this group of vulnerable young children could identify basic feelings such as feeling happy, sad, angry and scared, if assisted to do so in a context specific, culturally-sensitive, child-friendly way. Secondly, the results indicated that only 2 (4.8%) of the participants identified bodily signs associated with feelings. Thirdly, the way in which the study was conducted emphasised the importance of child-friendliness when conducting research with young children. Child-friendliness consisted of three aspects, namely: a child-friendly atmosphere in which to collect data; child-friendly content of data collection components; and child-friendly research procedures used to deliver data collection components.Knowledge gained from this study underscores the need for psycho-education about the identification of feelings and accompanying bodily signs. Knowledge gained from this study could contribute towards future planning and adaptation of activities on the identification of feelings, since this is one of the core components of CBT-based anxiety prevention and/or early intervention programmes.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University