For children, art therapy is play. This comes naturally to them. From the child's intrauterine environment through infancy, the world is experienced through the senses. The baby records, assimilates and communicates information based on what it hears, sees, touches, smells and feels from the environment. The information learned during these early years about attachment, safety, belonging and loss can have a profound effect on the development of the person and how he or she relates to the world as an adult. Art therapy can access this sensual world of images, sounds, smells and textures. Art therapy goes to the recorded pre-verbal history in each of us, a place that is not easily accessed by verbal therapies, especially for children as their language ability is still in development.

Through the ages of approximately 2 to 7 years, children are learning the cultural symbols of communication: graphic and verbal. Developmentally, the progression of the graphic image proceeds in a similar sequence to that of verbal acquisition. This information can aid the art therapist in a developmental assessment of the child. Children learn, understand, integrate new experiences and try out new ideas through the process of play. This process gives the art therapist a window into the child's world, giving opportunity to help in the healing process.