Abstract: | The purpose of this preliminary study was to explore the impact of child-centered play therapy (CCPT) on children identified within J. Piaget's (1962) preoperational and concrete operations developmental stages. Using archival data, this study used a 3-wave repeated measures analysis of variance design to analyze the impact of CCPT on 24 children between the ages of 3 and 8 who received 19-23 individual CCPT sessions. On the basis of the child's age, children were evenly divided into 2 treatment groups of preoperational or operational developmental stage. A pretest, approximate midpoint, and posttest administration of the Parenting Stress Index (R. Abidin, 1995) was collected for use in the analysis. Preliminary results of this study revealed statistically significant differences in the impact of CCPT for children of different developmental stages. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved) |