The Effectiveness of Anger Management and Emotional Expression Training in Reducing Behavioral Disorders in Maladaptive Childre

Anger and aggression may instigate many behavioral disorders and hazards. Hence, controlling them is a must that requires proper planning. In light of the aforementioned, the objective of the current research was to study the effectiveness of teaching anger management and emotional expression skills in reducing behavioral disorders in maladaptive girl students aged 7-12 years.Method & Material: An experimental study was conducted through a pretest – posttest design. Thirty girl students were selected among those who were accessible, those who had scored higher than the rest in the CSI-4 test and whose maladaptive behavior was approved by the school counselor and principal. They were then randomly assigned to two test and control groups. Anger management skills were taught to the test group through eight 1-hour-long sessions held once a week. The control group however, did not receive any training. Distribution analysis was performed through the pretest – posttest design To test the main hypotheses of this research. There were significant differences between the test and control groups with regards to the severity of behavioral disorders in the following subscales: attention deficit – hyperactivity (p<0.01), oppositional defiant (p<0.01), conduct disorder (p<0.01), anxiety disorder (p<0.01), ticks (p<0.01), and mood disorder (p<0.01). The only two subscales that did not prove to be significantly different between the maladaptive children of either test or control groups were major depression (p>0.01) and fear (p>0.01); the effect of the pretest had been kept constant. The hypothesis is therefore approved, as 6 of the subscales of behavioral disorders have proven to be significant. Anger managment skills and emotional expression training can be considered effective methods for treat behavioral disorders.