Effectivenss of drama therapy on social skills and emotional recognition of children with high-functioning autism spectrum disorder

The aim of this research was to study the effectiveness of drama therapy on social skills and emotional recognition of children with high-functioning autism spectrum disorder. The research was a semi-experimental study with pretest-posttest and control group design and 2-month follow-up. The statistical population of the study consisted of all children aged 7 to 12 years old with autism in Isfahan which consisted of a total number of 120 individuals. 30 individuals were selected through targeted sampling method and randomly assigned to two experimental and control groups. The experimental group received drama therapy in 20 sessions. The training was carried out in the group and all the instructors of the children completed Autism Measurement Scale, Matsun Social Skills Questionnaire and Ekman’s Facial Expression Recognition Test before and after the training, and after the follow-up period. Data were analyzed using SPSS-22 for reporting descriptive statistics and repeated measure ANOVA outcomes. The results of the study showed that there is a significant difference between the mean of social skills of the experimental and control groups at the level of 0.05 at the post-test stage. Also, the results showed that there is a significant difference in the level of emotional recognition in the post-test phase between the experimental and control groups (P Therefore, it can be concluded that drama therapy has been effective in improving social skills and emotional recognition of children with high-functioning autism spectrum disorder. Therefore, this method is recommended as an effective method for improving social skills, emotional recognition and other components of mental health