This research analyzes the bibliography on art therapy regarding parents who are raising disabled children from diverse perspectives. There are various types of therapies for parents, but among these, my focus is on the commonly utilized forms of musi...
This research analyzes the bibliography on art therapy regarding parents who are raising disabled children from diverse perspectives. There are various types of therapies for parents, but among these, my focus is on the commonly utilized forms of music therapy and art therapy. My research of the bibliography was largely internet-based due to restrictions placed on in-person school and library activities in light of the COVID-19 pandemic that have been in place for nearly a year, as well as restrictions on face-to-face social activities. I principally utilized the Academic Research Information Service (www.riss.kr) for my research. I selected a total of 78 papers, including 26 papers on music therapy (22 theses, 4 academic journals) and 52 papers on art therapy (44 theses, 8 academic journals). My analysis consisted of two main parts: first, the comprehensive status of music and art therapy literature comprising the current state of literature types and researchers’ major analysis of literature. And second, the research methodology of music and art therapy literature, which is further subdivided into literature research types, dependent variable and measurement tools of literature, and research objects of literature.
According to my analysis, papers on parents of disabled children number 1,293 in total, but papers on music and art therapy for parents with disabled children are far fewer than other papers, with 26 papers for music therapy and 52 papers for art therapy located. In contrast, in terms of the literature on disabled children, 194 papers on music therapy and 339 papers on art therapy have been published; these are relatively large numbers compared to the scant number of papers on parents living with disabled children. My analysis of the current types of music and art therapy literature located 78 papers. The status of music and art therapy literature types is that music therapy has 26 papers (22 theses and 4 academic journals), and art therapy has 52 papers (44 theses and 8 academic journals). In terms of the current state of the researchers’ concentrations, music therapy has 6 types of concentrations and art therapy has 17 types of concentrations, reflecting that researchers with diverse concentrations (i.e., art therapy-related concentrations) outnumber researchers with music therapy concentrations in terms of research activity. Furthermore, as to the research types, music therapy has 9 experimental studies, 3 case studies, 5 mixed studies, and 9 research studies, reflecting that there are more experimental studies and research studies than other studies. And in art therapy, there are 41 experimental studies, 5 case studies, and 5 mixed studies, and 1 research study, reflecting that experimental studies are the most prevalent. By examining music and art therapy’s dependent variables and measurement tools, dependent variables and measurement tools were nearly complementary, and the stress of nurturing was significantly high in terms of the dependent variables. Finally, examining the subjects of the literature, the main subject was the mother. Occasionally, both mother and father, grandmothers, and aunts were selected as subjects, but the majority of the subjects for music therapy and art therapy were mothers. Taking these results together, studies on music therapy and art therapy regarding parents of children with disabilities are conducted without a significant increase every year. Furthermore, the parenting of children with disabilities is largely handled by the mother, and it turns out that the mother's stress of parenting is the biggest area of concern. It appears that it is necessary to focus on research of this issue in the future.