ABSTRACT
For hospitalized children, the sights, sounds, and smells associated with medicine and medical care can be foreign, frightening, and overwhelming; the intensity of the hospital experience can threaten a child’s continued development and psychological well-being. Children are multimodal and naturally move in and out of different kinds of play, art expression, games, conversation, and sandplay within a very short frame of time when given choices. This chapter examines how children integrate different modalities, both in the hospital setting and after hospitalization. It examines how children integrate different modalities, both in the hospital setting and after hospitalization. The degree to which children can tolerate actual or perceived life-threatening events, and integrate stressful healthcare experiences, is tied to prior experiences dealing with challenges and tolerating anxiety. Art therapists are often assigned a caseload or provided referrals by the child life specialist who oversees an area or population of patients.
