Special Education Needs of Handicapped Children

Abstract

The author presents a model for therapy using various developmental theories to explain the complex play patterns which the child presents in play therapy sessions. She outlines how a knowledge of these theories, in relation to children's play in therapy, provides the therapist with a technique, which initially gives a baseline of the child's emotional state and subsequently, as therapy proceeds, provides a measure of progress. She illustrates how relationship therapy and nondirective play, in the context of the theories, provide the therapeutic experience which the child needs. The case illustrating this paper is entirely fictitious, using only actual isolated incidents from the author's recordings of sessions with many children. These incidents have been edited to disguise all identifying features of the children concerned.