The relationship between spatial ability self-efficacy and visualization performance: psychometric evidence.

Childhood trauma exposure (including maltreatment, neglect, witnessing violence and catastrophic disasters) represents a critical global public health issue. Traumatic events alter structural and functional brain architecture in children and induce emotion dysregulation, aberrant stress reactivity and social adaptive deficits. In severe cases, trauma sequelae persist into adulthood, elevating risks of anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and exerting long-term adverse impacts across the lifespan (). Neuroimaging evidence verifies that childhood trauma disrupts core brain regions including the prefrontal cortex, amygdala and hippocampus, and triggers hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal (HPA) axis dysregulation. These neurological alterations drive hallmark trauma-related manifestations: diminished emotion regulation capacity, heightened negative emotional reactivity and social withdrawal, constituting a leading risk factor for childhood psychological and behavioral dysfunction (). Epidemiological data indicate 22%−35% of children worldwide experience at least one traumatic event. School-age children (7–12 years) are disproportionately vulnerable to traumatic stress amid rapid cognitive and social maturation, with severe impairments to regulatory and social functioning. This underscores an urgent demand for early, safe and effective intervention protocols (). Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT) and Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) remain the gold-standard psychotherapies for traumatized children. While their therapeutic efficacy is well-established, these approaches carry notable drawbacks: prolonged delivery cycles, limited specialized clinicians, low child treatment adherence, and heavy reliance on verbal expression capacity, hindering large-scale clinical dissemination (). For traumatized children with limited verbal skills and severe emotional dysregulation, conventional talk-based therapies fail to access underlying affective experiences, resulting in muted intervention gains (). Accordingly, developing novel non-invasive, child-friendly, easy-to-administer interventions with high acceptability has emerged as a prominent research priority. As an important branch of art therapy, trauma-informed music intervention is grounded in neuroscience, psychology and traumatology theories. Through structured musical activities including improvisation, rhythmic exercises and emotional song creation, it offers traumatized children a safe, low-pressure outlet for emotional expression. Bypassing linguistic barriers and directly targeting the limbic system and autonomic nervous system, it is hypothesized to modulate stress responses and facilitate emotional integration and social connection (, ). Studies suggest that music intervention can significantly lower children's cortisol levels, boost parasympathetic activity and optimize physiological indicators such as respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA), which lays a physiological foundation for emotional regulation (). Meanwhile, group musical activities cultivate children's sense of cooperation and empathy, stimulate their social initiative, reduce social avoidance and loneliness, and ultimately improve their social adaptability (). In recent years, a number of overseas randomized controlled trials have verified that trauma-informed music intervention can effectively relieve anxiety and depressive symptoms and improve emotional regulation and social functioning in traumatized children, with high safety and no adverse events observed ().