Effect of puppet play therapy intervention on improvement of preschool children's social skills with Down syndrome

The purpose of this research was to study the effect of puppet play therapy intervention on children's social skills of boys with Down syndrome. The research design of this study was single subject case (ABA). Over 17 sessions with 35 minutes, trained social skills through puppet play therapy in the sample was consisted of three educable boys with Down syndrome were selected by convenience sampling method (one of them didnt continue therapy from 6th session). Each of these children, before beginning the intervention, during the intervention, after the intervention and after 45 days of the end of the intervention (follow-up) were observed and evaluated with checklist designed by researcher of social skills, by researcher in eight steps and by teachers in four steps The results in one subjects, indicate increasing social skills during the intervention and decreasing skills (higher than the base line) during the follow-up. on the other subjects, indicate increased social skills during the intervention and effectiveness stability in follow-up stage. According to the results of this study, the usage of puppet play therapy proposes for quality improvement of social skills in children with Down syndrome in educational environment.