Bibliotherapy with children who have a sibling with a disability

ABSTRACT

Children who have a sibling with a disability face unique challenges and experiences throughout their lives. Because of the varied situations that are due to their sibling’s condition, these children may face emotions they are not able to articulate or which may lead to confusion. Bibliotherapy is an intervention that has been shown to help children identify and express their feelings, as well as identify ways to cope with these feelings. This study provides support for these identified benefits of bibliotherapy, and further demonstrates the needs that these children have to interact with peers in similar situations and to be given opportunities to safely and openly express their feelings to caring adults.

KEYWORDS:

• Bibliotherapy
• children
• disability
• sibling
• and therapeutic recreation

Acknowledgement

A special thank you to Karley Brouwer, Hannah Nass, and Amanda Pompillius for serving as research assistants, and to Zac Toth, Jun Zheng, and Neal Rogness for statistics consultation.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.