Die benutting van diagrammatiese hulpmiddels met aggressiewe kinders in die middelkinderjare : 'n Gestaltspelterapeutiese intervensie

Abstract

Aggressive behaviour in the middle childhood years causes many problems, not only for children with this behaviour, but also for the people involved with the aggressive behaviour of children and for society as a whole. Child aggression does not only have a negative impact on children’s social development, but also hampers children’s personality development, emotional development, cognitive development, moral development and even their physical development. According to the field theory on which this study is based, everything that happens in the field has a mutual influence on each other. Children’s aggressive behaviour therefore influences systems inside and outside themselves. As children in the middle childhood years do not have the emotional and social control that adults do, the focus of the study is not on children who present with aggressive behaviour every now and then, but rather on children who frequently present with aggressive behaviour. The term aggressive behaviour is used as a descriptive term for the use of physical aggression, verbal aggression, animosity and anger. Early intervention is therefore crucial in order to ensure that the development of children with aggressive behaviour is hampered as little as possible by behaviour. There always seems to be a cause for aggression in children. The causes should just be sought and addressed. During the course of this study, diagrammatic aids were used as intervention media for children with aggression in the middle childhood years. Diagrammatic aids were used because these bring the world in which the children live into the playroom in a concrete manner. Children in this particular phase of development are also dependent on concrete examples to make sense of their worlds. The research hypothesis of this study – namely, if Gestalt-based diagrammatic aids are used in intervention with children with aggression in the middle childhood years, there will be a decrease in the exhibition of aggressive behaviour – was investigated in this study. The purpose of this study was to undertake investigative and descriptive research into the use of diagrammatic aids within a Gestalt therapeutic framework for children with aggressive behaviour in the middle childhood years, through the use of the single system design. In order to meet this objective, both a literature review and an empirical investigation was launched. The purpose of the literature review was to provide insight into existing information regarding children with aggressive behaviour in the middle childhood years, the Gestalt approach and various diagrammatic aids. During the empirical research phase, five children with aggressive behaviour in the middle childhood years were involved in this study. The parent(s) of the children were also involved in the first and second-last sessions. Mixed method research was used in this study, in other words a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods. A combination of these two research methods resulted in a more comprehensive research approach. Quasiexperimental research was used as single system design. The single system design was chosen because only one test and one group were used during the study. A standardised scale was used as pre- and post-test to establish the impact of the intervention on the children’s levels of aggression. Conclusions and recommendations could be made from this study, based on the literature review and the empirical investigation that were launched.