“Once upon a time... a healing story” Educational attention in hospitalized children through literature
Abstract
The sudden appearance of illness in children involves a breakage of the balance they had been enjoying up to that moment. The effects that the loss of health has on children are so big that they go beyond health problems and must also be understood in terms of the personal and social consequences that getting ill has for children. This so important that the current education legislative framework (LOE, 2006) establishes specific support measures to be enforced in the event of illness and foresees schooling options different from the traditional ones (hospital schools). Suitable attention for an ill child involves the bringing together of Hospital Pedagogy and Therapeutic Pedagogy. Like this, especial and assistential education should work hand in hand for the purpose of providing a personalized and interdisciplinary response. Literature contributes to the emotional wellbeing of the child in hospital. In this study literature is seen as a therapeutic instrument. Literature reveals itself not only as a source of pleasure or entertainment for the child but also a means of evasion to face the difficult situation he / she is going through. Storytelling,if used as a therapeutic tool, allows for the pediatric patient’s personal enhancement since it tackles the psychological problems involved in hospital treatment. Likewise, self-identification with fictive characters allows these children to understand the hard reality they are going through, overcoming their fears and even modifying preconceived attitudes or beliefs about hospitals and the professionals working there.
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