By: Catherine Blanchard
Behavioral problems happen in adolescence, but helping adolescents build social and emotional skills has been found to improve their ability to cope with their situations. In a recent study, researchers found that employing music and visual arts aided in student’s acquisition of those skills like “identifying and controlling emotions, creating and completing goals...” (Mogro-Wilson et al., 2020) etc. This quasi-experimentally designed study observed students in two urban high schools where one school was given the resources to teach the curriculum. Their research found that the program did aid students in building social and emotional skills. So, the next time you think about helping others build social and emotional skills, consider employing music and visual arts to aid in your presentation.
Mogro-Wilson, C., & Tredinnick, L. (2020). Influencing Social and Emotional Awareness and Empathy with a Visual Arts and Music Intervention for Adolescents. Children & Schools, 42(2), 111–119. https://doi-org.ezproxy.franu.edu/10.1093/cs/cdaa008
