Effectiveness of acceptance and commitment therapy on family performance and parent-child relationships of the parents of children with learning disability

The present study was conducted to investigate the Effectiveness of acceptance and commitment therapy on family performance and parent-child relationships of the parents of children with learning disability. The present study was quasi-experimental with pretest, posttest and control group design. The statistical population of the study included all the parents of the children with learning disability in the city of Isfahan in academic year 2016-17. Non-probable available sampling method and random putting were used in the present study in a way that 30 parents were selected through purposive and available method from those referred to Tamasha consultation center and they were randomly put into experimental and control groups. The experimental group received training intervention during two-and-a-half months in ten ninety-minute sessions while the people in the control group didn’t receive such intervention in the process of doing the study. The applied questionnaires included parent-child relationship questionnaire (Fine, Morland and Shobel, 1983), and family performance questionnaire (Nathan, Baldwin, and Bishop, 1983). The research data were analyzed through ANCOVA method via SPSS 24 software. Findings: The data analysis results showed that acceptance and commitment therapy has been effective on family performance (P<0.001) and parent-child relationships (P<0.001) in the parents of the children with learning disability. According to the findings of the present study it can be stated that acceptance and commitment therapy can be employed as efficient therapy to improve family performance and parent-child relationships of the parents of the children with learning disability.