Promoting Kindergarten Readiness Using Early Intervention Art Therapy with Latinx Farmworker Children

Abstract Latinx farmworker children are a vulnerable and disparate health population that confronts a myriad of threats to their emotional and behavioral health and subsequent development. Art therapy provides a potentially valuable and efficient strategy for preventing young children's mental health problems by providing a structured and engaging outlet for resolving the emotional sequelae of chronic adversity. A narrative-focused and trauma-processing art therapy program was implemented with 14 children aged between 3-5 years over 12 sessions in a bi-weekly format within a rural migrant head start program. We used a simple single group pre/posttest design to examine the impact of this intervention and saw improvement in all developmental areas using a specifically designed art therapy observation measure (ATC-PC) and a routine early development measure (LAP-3). However, it was unclear whether these changes were attributable to the art therapy program alone. Therefore, the findings of this pilot study warrant replication at a wider-scale. Additionally, the ATC-PC was shown to be a promising observation tool to document progress in art therapy with young children that also requires wider implementation and further testing.