Effects of an intervention program on emotional skills in preschool children

Abstract

The goal of this study is to determine the effects of an intervention program discovering my Emotions for recognizing and expressing positive, negative and moral emotions. It was conducted with a group of preschooler's children in Lima. The study followed a quasi-experimental research design with pre-test and post-test control groups. The study sample comprised 125 participants with an average age of 5 years (95 in the experimental group and 30 in the control group), through intentional sample. Content validity, construct validity and reliability of the instrument were determined. The program was organized in ten weekly sessions of approximately two hours per session by applying participatory techniques. In the pretest, no significant differences were found in the scores obtained from the control group and the experimental group. In the intra-test group analysis, the two experimental groups showed slight differences. In the posttest, clear differences were detected between the control group and the experimental groups; in the clinical metric analysis, there was a greater reliable and clinical change in the experimental groups. The strategies, activities and participatory techniques are analysed, the regular attendance of the participants, among other aspects and the implications of the program oriented to the recognition of emotions in children are discussed. Pre-school children who participated in the program were able to recognize and express positive, moral and negative emotions. This demonstrates the effectiveness of the program and verifies the hypothesis formulated.