Brotherhood have an meaningful influence on each other through the interaction between them with physical and emotional interchange in overall life. Also the importance of brotherhood is applied to the brotherhood in family including any handicapped c...
Brotherhood have an meaningful influence on each other through the interaction between them with physical and emotional interchange in overall life. Also the importance of brotherhood is applied to the brotherhood in family including any handicapped child. As examined the study on non-handicapped brother's attitude toward handicapped brother, it can make a conclusion clearly that non-handicapped brothers are well-adopted or not with the experience of staying together with handicapped child as compared with brothers in general family. However, if they do not have any opportunity of having several experiences from normal brotherhood, or they have negative experience, sometimes it can cause the complications, because it is difficult to expect positive interaction between brothers if negative feelings remain. Moreover, they may have the possibility of bringing about extreme problem in tense atmosphere related to handicapped brother.
Therefore the necessity of changing hostile attitude toward handicapped brother to receptive attitude is emphasized with the support for helping handicapped brother and non-handicapped brother interact positively. However, there is still only a few of in-depth studies to understand and accept handicapped brothers in natural interaction between handicapped brother and non-handicapped brother in substance.
The purpose of this study is to provide the opportunity of interacting naturally by making brothers voluntarily select a medium and a theme with art therapy, and in addition, to examine how the art therapy, which is centered on the interaction between brothers, has influence on non-handicapped brother's receptive and hostile attitude.
Subjects of this study are 8-year-old elder brother A who is physically deformed with 'Cornelia de Lange Syndrome' and the slight level of mental deficiency, and non-handicapped brother B younger by 1 year. A non-handicapped brothers shows hostile attitude toward handicapped brother, and thus there is difficulty in the interaction between brothers. 24 sessions of Art therapy were conducted for 50 minutes once a week from January to July of 2007. Voice was recorded and analyzed every sessions with obtaining parents' consent to analyze the change of brothers' interaction depending on session, and the non-handicapped brother‘s attitude toward handicapped brother, and Schaeffer Sibling Behavior Rating(Edgertion, 1979) was conducted before/after the fact. The results are as follows.
As the results according to sessions, at the initial stage, when handicapped brother A imitated non-handicapped brother B in selecting a medium and theme, B showed hostile attitude such as fight with A due to strong dissatisfaction, and this caused the result that interaction was not maintained and each of them played alone.
At first half of middle stage, B allowed partially A to share medium and imitate, or the frequency of criticism was decreased. Also B showed some acceptive attitudes with trying to participate in co-play, but also B showed hostile attitude like stopping play or finishing by complications because B reacted sensitively to A's mistake.
At the second half of middle stage that was change by flexible medium, there was active co-participation such as participating naturally in A's cooking play because B was interested in it, and B showed receptive attitude that recognized A as play-friend. However B still reacted to A sensitively when A did not satisfy own expectation, but A and B could be immersed in play easily.
At the final stage, B became more interested in handicapped along with A's disorder, and thus tried more positive interaction to A. B showed receptive attitude with providing an idea to A, receiving A's opinion, and trying to compromise, and furthermore, A followed B's proposal well, participated in play with cooperating B, or satisfied with making works. Although there was often trivial complications while A and B were participating in play together, and progressing to make a cooperative work, they easily were immersed in activity again.
As examined the results before/after the fact of Schaeffer Sibling Behavior Rating, it indicated that there were changes of point in all of 4 sub-domains; reception, support, hostility, and confusion. The receptive attitude and supporting attitude were increased, and hostile attitude and confused attitude were decreased.
Therefore the art therapy that is centered on the interaction between handicapped brother and non-handicapped brother drove non-handicapped's receptive attitude toward handicapped brother to be increased gradually, whereas the hostile attitude was decreased. In addition, the Schaeffer Sibling Behavior Rating conducted before/after the fact shows the same result. As this result, it is confirmed that the art therapy that is centered on the interaction between brothers can have influence on the non-handicapped brother‘s attitude toward handicapped brother.