The Effect of Mirror Neurons Stimulation on Development of Grammatical Understanding in 5-8 Year, Female, Persian, Autistic Children

The current research used an experimental, applied and available sampling design, selecting the samples from Tehran Autism Center. The research aims to examine the relationship between mirror neurons stimulation by intentional movement imitation and verbal imitation with grammatical understanding development in autistic children.
Accordingly, first, the researchers designed an applied and easy model for autistic children rehabilitation based on mirror neurons stimulation using purposeful movement imitation and verbal imitation. Then, based on TPR technique, an 7-year-old autistic girl underwent an pilot study for 12 sessions, whereby positive and effective results were observed; Then, five autistic girls aged 5-8 years were selected and underwent 42 sessions during 14 weeks.In order to examine grammatical understanding skills of the subjects before and after intervention, TOLD-P3 test was used. Each subject, as her control was examined before and after intervention. Furthermore, two months after a 14-week stopping period, all the subjects were re-examined, and finally, results stability was examined.
Findings: Research findings were analyzed using SPSS16 software by Paired-samples t-test. The obtained results suggest that there is a significant difference between pre-test and post-test scores of grammatical understanding (P=0.003) (supposing P