Date of Award

2026

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Psychology (PsyD)

Department

Graduate Department of Clinical Psychology

First Advisor

Winston Seegobin, PsyD

Second Advisor

Leihua Edstrom, PhD, ABSNP

Third Advisor

Elliot Lawless, PsyD

Abstract

Psychological assessment with children is vulnerable to inequities that arise from cultural mismatch, situational anxiety, and the interpretive nature of examiner judgement. This pilot study examined whether a brief, standardized pre-assessment sandtray activity could enhance children’s assessment experience and observational richness by supporting rapport prior to testing. Using a within-subjects, counterbalanced crossover design, 10 children (ages 7-10) completed two assessment sessions on separate days: one session included a 20-minute guided sandtray task immediately before testing and one session proceeded directly to testing. Quantitative outcomes included state anxiety (SAI-CH-6), general self-efficacy (GSE), and performance on brief standardized tasks (WJ-IV Math Fluency and Sentence Writing Fluency age equivalents; NEPSY-II Word Generation standard scores). Repeated measures ANCOVAs controlling for time between sessions and condition order indicated no significant differences between sandtray and control conditions across anxiety, self-efficacy, or test performance. Qualitative behavioral observations were coded across five domains and compared across conditions using Wilcoxon signed-rank test; no statistically significant differences emerged, though descriptive patterns suggested slightly lower mild anxiety indicators and somewhat higher high-engagement codes in the sandtray condition. Overall, findings suggest that a brief pre-assessment sandtray task is feasible, however, evaluation of its effectiveness is limited by the small pilot sample size, underscoring the need for replication with larger samples to allow for adequate statistical power and more definitive conclusions. Implications for equity-oriented assessment, measurement sensitivity, and future research with clinically referred samples are also discussed.

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