Cuentos Folkloricos as a Therapeutic Modality with Puerto Rican Children

Abstract

Psvehiatric epidemiological studies suggest that Hispanics underutilize coimmunityv mental health resources and fail to profit from traditional psychotherapeutic treatment modalities. This study evaluated a new therapeutic modality using Puerto Rican folk-tales ("cuenitos folkloricos") to promote identification with cultuirallv familiar characters and themes in order to facilitate mode-ling of adaptive behavior depicted in the stories. Two folktale treatmenits, original Puerto Rican cuentos and Americanized cuenitos, were compared with a traditional group therapy and no initervenition. Subjects were 208 Puerto Rican children in grades K-3 screened for presenting behavior problems in school according to teacher report. Subjects were randomly assigned to treatments and underwent 20 weekly group sessions along with their mothers. Results indicated that cuento therapies significantly increased WISC-R comprehension scores uniformly across grades K-3 and significantly reduced trait anxiety of first graders. In light of utilization statistics reported in other studies, cuento therapy seems to be an attractive modality for Puerto Rican families, boasting a 49% initial participation rate, less than 10% attrition rate, and better than 80% attendance rate at group sessions. Thus, preliminary evaluation suggests that cuento therapy is a promising new modality for young Puerto Rican children; moreover, the technique may be readily adaptable to other Hispanic populations.