The Effectiveness of Play Therapy on Reading Performance, Adaptive Skills and Behavioral Problems in Students with Dyslexia

Dyslexia is one of the problems of students during their studies. This disorder has negative effects in various fields and impedes academic progress. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of play therapy on reading performance, adaptive skills and behavioral problems in students with dyslexia.

The present study was a quasi-experimental with pretest-posttest design and control group. The statistical population consisted of all students with dyslexia in Rasht city in the academic year 2016-2017, among them 30 students were selected by convenient sampling method and randomly divided into the experimental and control groups. Data were collected using the dyslexia test (Karami-Nouri & Moradi, 2008), Wechsler intelligence scale for children (1974), and social skills rating scale (Gersham and Elliot, 1990). The intervention program was administered to the experimental group during 10 sessions for 2 months and the control group did not receive this intervention. Statistical analysis of covariance was used for data analysis.

The results of covariance analysis showed that play therapy significantly improved the components of reading performance and adaptive skills as well as reducing behavioral problems in the experimental group (P <0.001).

Based on the results of the present study, it can be concluded that play therapy provides an effective framework for further learning by linking perceptual skills with motor information and generalizing it to the environment.