The Effect of Cognitive-Behavioral Play Therapy on Social Anxiety and Aggressive Behaviors in Primary School Children

Social anxiety and aggressive behaviors are common childhood problems that have been studied in different ways in recent years. The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of cognitive-behavioral play therapy on social anxiety and aggressive behaviors in primary school children.

This research was a quasi-experimental study (pretest-posttest with control group). The statistical population of this study included all male and female primary school students in Tabriz in the academic year of 2018-2018. From this papulation, 30 students who had received social anxiety and aggression diagnoses were selected using multistage cluster sampling method and were randomly assigned to experimental and control groups (15 individuals in each group). Both groups completed the Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale for Children and Adolescents (2003) and Shahim Primary School Aggression Questionnaire (2006) in the pre-test and post-test stages. The experimental group received eight sessions (one session per week for 8 weeks) of group cognitive-behavioral play therapy and the control group did not receive any intervention. Data were analyzed using univariate and multivariate analysis of covariance.

Based on the findings, there was a significant difference between the mean scores of the experimental and control groups, and cognitive-behavioral play therapy reduced social anxiety (p=0.001, d=0.37), Physical aggression (p=0.001, d=0.35), Verbal and functional reactive aggression (p=0.001, d=0.47) and relational aggression (p=0.001, d=0.30) in the experimental group.
 

Based on the results of this study, it can be concluded that students in the process of cognitive-behavioral play therapy learn how to communicate well with other peers and thereby gradually reduce their aggressive behaviors and social anxiety.