|
|
The meaning art therapy for the development of individual personality with visual impairment
WOHNIGOVÁ, Veronika
The objective of this study is to identify the influence of art therapy on personality development of visually impaired individuals. Art therapy - an expressive therapy - is aimed at changing the behavior, thinking and emotions of a person with the use of art. Drawing is the basic diagnostic means in art therapy. The advantage of such form of therapy is that every individual is to some extent capable of expressing himself or herself through art. The goal of using art therapy with visually impaired individuals is to allow and teach them how to artistically express themselves. This thesis has two major parts theoretical and practical. The theoretical part is then divided into three chapters; first chapter describes the different categories of visual impairment. The last section of this chapter discusses possible sensory compensations for eye disabilities and overviews the various forms of low vision aids and devices. The second chapter characterizes the development of individuals with congenital and acquired visual impairment. Such disability means a great cognitive, motor and social limitation these domains are the concern of individual subchapters. The last chapter of theoretical part of this study deals with art therapy itself. It defines the concept of art therapy, its aims and goals and the basic artistic forms. The practical part of this thesis deals with research goals and research questions. A quantitative research has been used to collect the necessary data. It included the following methods: data analysis, semi structured interview and participant observation. Three volunteering respondents residing in South Bohemia participated in this investigation. The goal of this thesis is to determine the significance of art therapy for people with visual impairment. This goal has two major purposes. The first one is to identify how art therapy contributes to the development of upper limbs motor skills and tactile perception in combination with the individual's level of visual impairment. With the use of participant observation the following three areas have been examined: hand movement and coordination, thumb opposition and upper limb action. It was concluded that the major contribution of art therapy for visually impaired people consists in training and improving their tactile perception, haptic memory and gaining experience with various structures and materials. For individuals with low vision impairment is limited sight is still the dominant sense. With low vision individuals, art therapy helps skill improvement. The second purpose is to identify the contribution of art therapy to socialization of visually impaired people. Socialization in this context means communication, self-esteem and individual life quality perception. The data collected for this research reveal that art therapy greatly contributes to communication; creativity and artwork interpretation directly influences the development of communication. Research aimed at self-esteem shows that although visually impaired individuals were not satisfied with their artwork in the beginning of their therapy, later they noticed improvement and thus more confidence. Conclusions about their life quality perceptions can be drawn from their own artwork interpretations. The data collected for this research revealed differences in opinions. Individuals with congenital blindness exhibited relative satisfaction with their lives, as opposed to individuals with acquired low-vision impairment. The results of this thesis can be used as a study material or as an information source for this field's expert community or as an initiative for related institutions. They can also be used to determine the conditions for sensory development of visually impaired people and to establish the use of Axman modelling technique in practice.
|
guest ::
