The Effectiveness of Cognitive Behaviorbased Play Therapy on the Behavioral Problems among Primary Students with Intellectual Disabilities

This research has been conducted with the aim of studying the effectiveness of play therapy on severity of symptoms of behavioral problems among male students with intellectual disabilities (ID).

By considering an experimental design two special schools in Babol and Babolsar were selected. From the population of all students in the two schools, 30 were selected and assigned into the experimental and control groups (15 subjects each). These two groups were matched according to their demographics such as intelligence, gender, student level of education, and level of behavioral problems. At the pre- and post-test stages, before and after 10 sessions which took 30-45 minutes three sessions in a week, Rutter Questionnaires (1976) were applied to both groups. Furthermore, in order to diagnose any change after the therapy. The data were analyzed by SPSS software, using ANCOVA.

The play therapy could ameliorate the amount of behavioral problems (all at p<0.05).

Considering the significant differences between the experimental and control groups, play therapy may be suggested as an effective method of treatment for children and adolescence with behavioral problems.