Impact of Adlerian Play Therapy on Externalizing Behaviors of At-Risk Preschoolers

African American children experience higher rates of poverty than other children. According to the National Center for Children in Poverty (National Center for Children in Poverty, 2014), not only does poverty contribute to children's poor physical and mental health, it can also impede their learning abilities and contribute to problems socially, emotionally, and behaviorally. In this single-case design study, 4 at-risk African American preschool children ages 3-5 participated in 7 weeks of Adlerian individual play therapy followed by 7 weeks of Adlerian group play therapy. This intervention was chosen to address the participants' problematic classroom behaviors, i.e., "calling out" and maintaining boundaries. Findings showed that upon completion of 7 weeks of individual Adlerian play therapy, children demonstrated questionable to moderate effect-size (ES) gains in reducing disruptive classroom behaviors. After receiving an additional 7 weeks of the Adlerian group play therapy, children demonstrated moderate to high ES improvements. Implications for play therapists working with African American preschool children living in poverty, interventions for addressing externalizing behaviors, and recommendations for future research are discussed.