Effectiveness of Art Therapy on Social- Communication Skills, Flexibility Behavioral and Emotion Regulation in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

The purpose of this study was to determine the effectiveness of art therapy on social-communication skills, emotional regulation and behavioral flexibility in children with autism spectrum disorder. This research was quasi-experimental and it's plan was pre-test, post-test and follow-up two months with the control group. The statistical population included 6-12 years old children with autism spectrum disorder in Zanjan. The sample consisted of 26 children who were selected by the available sampling method and then randomly assigned into two experimental and control groups (each group was 13). The instrument of research was questionnaire of Autism Social Skills Profile_ Scott Bellini's, the Emotion Regulation Checklist- Shields & Cicchetti, and the Gilliam Autism Rating Scale-Second Edition rating scale. The experimental group perch on art therapy interventation during 44 session for 4 months that extracted from art therapy program for children and adolescents with autism by Jennifer Beth Silvers (2008). In addition to descriptive statistics, inferential statistics, the repeated measure anova were used to analyze the data. Data analysis showed that art therapy had a good effect on social-communication skills and it's components, the components of emotional regulation and instability/negativity and also behavioral flexibility, means that the intervention program improved social communication, emotion regulation and behavioral flexibility. So according to the findings of this research, art therapy as a complementary therapeutic approach can be used to improve social-communication skills, emotion regulation and behavioral flexibility in children with autism spectrum disorder.