The Efficacy of Psychodrama Training Program on Emotion Regulation in Students with Dyslexia

The problem of emotional regulation is one of the problems faced by students with dyslexia. The aim of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of psychodrama on emotion regulation of students with dyslexia. This study was quasi-experimental with pre-test, post-test and control group design. The statistical population included all students with dyslexia who were studying in public schools of the five educational regions of Isfahan city during 2015-2016. Multistage random sampling was used for the selection of the sample. The Reading & Dyslexia Test (RDT) were administered to identify learning disabilities in the students and 30 students with dyslexia were selected and randomly assigned to experimental (n=15) and control (n=15) groups. The intervention for the experimental group included 12 sessions each lasted 25 minutes. In this study, the Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (CERQ), Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children- Fourth Edition (WISC-IV) and Reading & Dyslexic Test (RDT) were used. The data were analyzed using Multivariate Analysis of Covariance (MANCOVA). The findings indicated that the psychodrama training program significantly influenced emotion regulation of students with dyslexia (p<0.0001). The results showed that psychodrama training program is effective in emotion regulation of students with dyslexia. So, students after receiving this approach, in addition to reducing negative emotions and improving the regulation of positive emotions also improved in other areas such as interpersonal and social behaviors. Therefore, focusing on emotional regulation skills as an important factor in the continuity of learning disorders can be useful in designing preventive interventions and reducing the incidence of psychological disorders.