The therapeutic power of dramatization: stimulation of neurons mirrors involved in language through emotion

Abstract

Currently we find the inclusion of some children in the programs of Special Educational Needs (SEN) due to the difficulties they have in the development and acquisition of language. SEN programs such as traditional therapies used in language disorders highlight the limitations they present. There are alternative therapies, based on art therapy, non-invasive, capable of improving language disorders by stimulating senses, creativity or emotions.

In this article we focus on the child of a child with problems in the acquisition of language and various difficulties of different kinds. For this intervention dramatization sessions are designed and applied, specifically the Shadow Theater, with the purpose of acting and stimulating the cognitive, motor, language and communication area and the socio-emotional area, and thus intervene in a way global in the minor. We emphasize how the stimulation of mirror neurons has an enormous incidence in this type of interventions.

With the purpose of knowing if, after the intervention of Shadow Theater and the stimulation of the so-called mirror neurons, there are improvements in the communicative intention, in the minor’s proprioceptive, linguistic and emotional area, a prospective experimental study of the child is designed and applied.

A case study has been applied as a research method, through the collection of data that allow us to obtain results of the study. This study is considered evaluative trying to evaluate, through the collection and analysis of data, the intervention of Shadow Theater to issue judgments and conclusions about it. The compilation and analysis of the data recorded in this study, allows us to conclude that there is the possibility of obtaining, through the Shadow Theater, improvements in the communicative intention of the minor, encouraging us to continue investigating in this line of alternative interventions. We hope to give more light on mirror neurons, and the possibility that it can offer us in affected children in the acquisition of language.