Sustainable school counselor-led drumming for improving social and emotional well-being in 5th grade Latino students

Latino youth experience social-emotional problems linked to poverty, which are exacerbated by lack of access to and utilization of care. Drumming is a nonverbal and universal activity that builds upon salutary components of Latino culture – cooperation and affiliation – and does not bear the stigma of therapy. A pretest-posttest nonequivalent control group design was used to assess the effects of 12 weeks of asset-based, school counselor-led drumming on social-emotional well-being in two fifth-grade intervention classrooms vs. two standard education control classrooms. The drumming protocol, delivered weekly for 40 minutes, included a therapeutic dimension involving guided interaction, self-disclosure, and reflection. Teachers completed a 113-item Teacher's Report Form for each of 101 participants (N = 54 experimental, N = 47 control, 97% socioeconomically disadvantaged, 91% Latino, 46.5% male, 53.5% female, mean age 10.5 years, range 10-12). There was 100% retention. ANOVA testing showed that intervention classrooms improved significantly in: withdrawn/depression (p < .02), attention problems (p < .01), inattention (p < .001), sluggish cognitive tempo (p < .001), post-traumatic stress problems (p < .01), internalizing problems (p < .02), and total problems (p < .01); and in DSM-oriented subscales: anxiety problems (p < .01), attention deficit/hyperactivity problems (p < .01), inattention (p < .001), and oppositional defiant problems (p < .03). This program is feasible and sustainable. It can increase student-counselor interaction and provide a cost-effective alternative to traditional counseling methods that lose efficacy as students approach middle school. These findings also challenge educational policy that undervalues the importance of the arts.