The Effect of Body Language and Social Skills Training on Social Adjustment of Students with Visual Impairment

Considering the importance of social skills as the most important factor of socialization and social adaptation, this study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of body language and social skills training on social adjustment in students with visual impairment.
The present study was a semi-experimental pre-test-post-test with control group. The statistical population of this study consisted of all 14-year-old female students with visual impairment in Tehran in 2015-2017 who referred to the welfare and rehabilitation centers. 40 students were selected using conveniant sampling method and randomly assigned into two experimental and control groups. The experimental group was trained for 14 sessions of 90 minutes. Both groups responded to the California Test of Personaliy (social compromise component) before and after the training. Collected data were analyzed using single-variable and multivariate covariance analysis.
The results of data analysis showed that the mean score of total social adjustment and all its subscals for exprimental group increased in post-test stage, but this increase in "social forms and antisocial tendency" scale was not (p Considering that in the social and body language, a person with visual impairment develops a model of communication skills that uses self-knowledge and learns non-verbal communication techniques such as body condition, shaking, facial expressions, and appropriate voice and tone, which resulting in social adaptation.