How Art Therapy Can Enhance Communication Skills

See how our Art Therapist Neve explores how creative expression through art therapy can significantly improve communication abilities.

Introduction
Having well developed communication skills are fundamental to successfully navigating our everyday lives and social interactions with others. Art therapy is a powerful mechanism that helps improve and beneficially build our communication and relationship skills, through the creative expression of our thoughts and feelings. Art therapy also uses a bottom approach that accesses our emotions and develops helpful insight about ourselves, others and the world around us. Thus strengthening  our connection with others and forming healthy and supportive relationships which enhance how overall wellbeing.

Understanding Communication Challenges
It is important that broader society understands the variety of communication challenges faced by different groups and integrate alternative ways of communicating and expressing oneself. To help build a culture of acceptance and inclusion that celebrates people’s differences. Communication challenges include:

• Developmental Delay: is where a child has not reached the expected developmental milestones compared to others the same age on the lifespan.
• Non-Verbal Autism: is usually associated with ASD children who don’t use words, but rather sounds, gestures and behaviours to communicate. Or respond as if they have not heard you.
• Selective / Post Trauma Mutism: People who have experienced trauma may find it impossible to talk other than to a selected few that feel safe and comfortable with.
• Language Disorders: includes difficulty with interpreting, understanding and / or engaging spoken words or sentences to express ideas i.e. dyslexia.
• Stuttering and Speech Disorders: are those that make it difficult to speak smoothly or combine sounds to form words.
  Voice Problems: include difficulty in being understood due breathiness, having a harsh or hoarse voice or extreme tonal differences and voice strengths.
• Hearing Impairment: includes partial or full loss of hearing. Communication may be assisted with Auslan sign language, hearing aids or cochlear implant.
• Visual Impairment: includes partial or complete loss of eyesight. May rely on clear word picture prompts, and adaptive technology / readers.
  Social Communication Disorder: finding it difficult to communicate in social situations.

What is Art Therapy?
Art therapy uses creative expression, i.e. drawing, painting, 3D sculpting, voice, sound, movement, journalling, storytelling, dramatic play and sand or water play to help individuals gain insight and understanding of themselves and others. Artmaking lends itself to creative expression in a nonverbal way, enabling individuals to gain access to their emotions, thoughts and lived experiences which otherwise may be difficult to express in words. 

Benefits of Art Therapy for Communication Skills

• Art Therapy allows individuals to freely express themselves creatively without criticism or judgement. 
• The artmaking process leads participants to safely identify, access, explore and express their emotions, particularly those that may be difficult or too complex to verbally express. Thus, helping participants to communicate more effectively with others.
• Art therapy leads to cognitive function, problem solving and information processing capability, which helps to read others better and understand non-verbal cues i.e. gestures and body language
• Engaging in Group Art Therapy i.e. the school holiday program, helps to develop better listening and vocabulary skills as participants must learn to listen, collectively respond and collaborate with others. 
• Art Therapy can also assist participants to develop and practice their negotiation, assertiveness and conflict resolution communication skills with their Art Therapist and / or therapy group. Resulting in positive expression of their needs and setting of healthy boundaries.
• The Art Therapy environment also promotes and fosters and empathic understanding and compassion for others. This helps to actively build healthy, strong, supportive and more meaningful relationships.
• Lastly, Art Therapy improves self-awareness and understanding, which leads to increased self-esteem and the confidence to form authentic and true connections with others.

Effective Art Therapy Techniques for Communication
Describe specific Art Therapy techniques that are effective for improving communication skills:

• Storytelling through Artmaking: Encourages participants to create visual stories that can be shared and discussed. Such artworks may also include the use of written, painted and collaged descriptive words, poetry, musical lyrics and / or written journal entries to further enhance the metaphorical meanings and narratives portrayed in the composition.
• Dramatic Play: Encourages role playing meaningful characters and acting out scenarios that help participants explore safe and free expression communication skills, using the body, sound, voice and movement.
• Symbolism and Dreamwork: Art therapy lends itself to the inclusion of rich visual symbolic representations and their meanings conveyed within the artwork. And may extend to analysing the messages communicated in one’s dreams to help understand conflicting emotions and complex ideas.

Anecdotes and Real-Life Examples
Client C who has been diagnosed with ADHD presented as experiencing social and relational communication issues amongst some school peers, due to impulsivity and a profound need for justice to prevail in problem solving playtime disputes. For example, Client C recently found it difficult to let go of what he perceived to be a group injustice by being treated unfairly and disrespectfully by a boy who acted superior in calling himself a ‘winner’ the rest of the team ‘losers’ during a ball game. Through reacting and roll playing the scene using Playdough figurines of the boy and himself, Client C was able to successfully externalise and discharge his pent-up emotions, which kept him stuck in this perceived sense of injustice.

Next Client B was resourced to positively reframe and alter this problematic perception via the Art Therapist asking explorative prompting questions and applying Dialectical Behaviour Techniques (DBT), to help him empathically alter his view of the other boy. In doing so, Client C effectively gained new insight that situations are not always as they appear, and this boy possibly felt disempowered at the time which led him to disrespectfully respond with superiority. Client C’s acceptance of an alternative view enabled him let go of his unhelpful perception and grow. Resulting in his mother expressing a noticeable reduction in Client C’s impulsive behaviour and greater compassion and understanding shown towards her and his brother.

Research and Evidence-Based Outcomes

• Challenges and Solutions for Students with Disabilities http://covey.org/challenges-and-solutions-for-students-with-disabilities/
• Communicating through Art: Creativity Meets Body-Mind Healing https://www.nm.org/healthbeat/healthy-tips/emotional-health/communicating-through-art 
• raisingchildren.net.au the Australian parenting site https://raisingchildren.net.au/guides/a-z-health-reference/communication-impairments#
  
  

A client centred care approach that caters to your child/ren’s individual needs, learning goals and wellbeing needs to be considered and planned for in the family home, classroom and wider school environments, to ensure that your child is given maximum opportunity to explore their interests, form a meaningful social group and interact with the wider community. The following tips may help you with this process.

• Educators are encouraged to remain flexible and customise their care and teaching style to accommodate different communication learning challenges experienced by some children i.e. dyslexia, ASD and ADHS, and provide equal learning opportunities. This may mean working within involved in a Multi-Disciplinary Team (MDT) help facilitate a learning environment that better suits the individual child learning needs.
• Parents and Educators should also try and maintain a clean and clutter free environment as an organised space alleviates distractions. 
• Advocacy: Parents and educators need to continually advocate for children who experience communication learning disabilities to ensure that their needs are individually assessed and their resources are current, readily accessible, modified and fully accommodated to avoid hinderance to their learning and developmental progression i.e. an IEP designed to address their disabilities, provision of support SSO staff and assistive technology for nonverbal learners. 
  
• Peer Mentoring: Children who struggle with communication, may find it difficult to form and maintain healthy friendships. Educators can consider partnering up such children with those who have good social skills and can model how to form healthy friendships and connections that value authenticity and one’s unique talents, skills and strengths. Lastly, peer mentoring provides opportunities to build social interaction skills, problem solving skills, independence and autonomy.

Collaborating with Art Therapists
Art Therapy is an integrative therapy that uses a client centred, strengths-based humanistic approach. And is successfully enhanced when supported in collaboration within a holistic multi-disciplinary team including parents / caregivers, educators, medical staff and other allied health workers.