Pixel International Conferences

This presentation will introduce Drama and Play Therapy as effective interventions based on play, aimed to improve social and emotional skills in children aged 3 to 16. The contemporary and multidisciplinary nature of Drama, and the child-centered approach of Play Therapy are considered, respectively, group and one-to-one effective teaching support on Social and Emotional Learning. They both use play as a communication tool to understand the children's inner world and to help them deal with emotional development. In particular, the presentation focuses on Drama and Play Therapy in schools, in order to address the importance of a deep understanding of a child’s inner world for an informed teacher-pupil educational relationship. The presentation will illustrate how early relationships and experiences affect the child's psychophysiological system, as reported by neuroscience research on interactions between sympathetic and parasympathetic systems. According to this bidirectional brain-body model, Drama and Play Therapy interventions in school can operate as a "window of affect tolerance" (Schore, 2012) for the children. The experience of a non-judgmental space of creative expression, within an empathic and attuned group or one-to-one relationship, as a consistent routine in school (once a week), generates, in the developing brain of the child, new connections (synaptogenesis) and new neurons (neurogenesis), modifying its structure, its functions and its emotional regulatory skills. The Play Therapist and the Drama Teacher, working in schools as psychobiological regulators (Schore, 2012), facilitate the children's social and emotional learning and support the teachers in their practice. The presentation will show examples of Play Therapy and Drama interventions in schools, with a focus on practical resources for the teacher's effective understanding of educational power of Play.

Keywords: Play, Drama, Play Therapy, Social Emotional Learning, Teaching Support;