The Impact of a Workshop with a Puppet Show for Young Siblings of Children with Special Needs

摘要

The purpose of this study is to create modified workshop model for siblings of children with special needs by using of a puppet show that deals with siblings' concerns. An original 25 minutes puppet show was performed, after games for 12 Japanese siblings aged from 7 to 13 and 80 minutes discussion was followed. The puppet show was performed for the mothers of the participants two weeks prior to the workshop. The evaluation of the workshop by the participants showed the following results: 1) The younger participants obtained significantly high score to the puppet show. 2) Children expressed lightly their impression during the show that the characters behaved too good. 3) Each participants chose their favorite theme in a show. These results suggest that 1) puppet show worked well to activate discussion for younger children, 2) siblings are tough-minded to the pressure compared with their mothers, and 3) a long show provides a variety of theme for siblings with different interests.