The present meta-analytic study estimated the overall effectiveness of child therapy interventions using CCPT methodology and explored the relationships between study characteristics and treatment effects. Fifty-two studies between 1995 and the present were included based on the following criteria: (a) the use of CCPT methodology, (b) the use of control or comparison repeated measure design, (c) the use of standardized psychometric assessment, and (d) clear reports of effect sizes or sufficient information for effect size calculation. Hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) techniques were utilized to estimate the overall effect size for the collected studies and explore relationships between effect sizes and study characteristics. Dependent variable included 239 effect sizes, and independent variables included 22 study characteristics. The mean age of all child participants in the collected studies was 6.7. In 15 studies, the majority of participants were Caucasian. An equal number of studies were made up of non-Caucasian participants, including 3 with majority African American, 4 with majority Hispanic/Latino participants, 5 with majority Asian/Asian American participants, and 3 with other ethnic populations. Study collection included 33 studies with majority of boys and 11 studies with majority of girls. HLM analysis estimated a statistically significant overall effect size of 0.47 for the …

A growing disparity between the mental health needs of children and their lack of treatment served as the basis of this study. To address this existent gap, I proposed that child-centered play therapy (CCPT), a holistic treatment that fosters children's emotional, developmental, and social growth would serve as a viable treatment. The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of CCPT on problem behaviors among children identified with an intellectual disability. Specifically, a single case, A-B-A design (N = 2) was used to examine changes in participant's problem behaviors as measured on the Aberrant Behavior Checklist (ABC) across conditions. Trained raters used the ABC to rate participant's problem behaviors 3 times per week during the course of this study. Participants completed 2 weeks of a no-intervention phase, 5 weeks of play therapy 3 times per week, and 2 weeks of a no-intervention maintenance phase. Additionally, participants were administered the Gesell Developmental Observation to assess their maturational age during the baseline and maintenance phases. Parents also completed the ABC during two intervals: baseline phase, and maintenance phase. Analysis of results indicated that problem behaviors decreased for both participants. Results from the percent of non-overlapping data (PND), an indice for …