Effectiveness of Play Therapy on Delayed Motor Development among Children Born Preterm in Amol, Iran

Despite many studies on cognitive and neuromuscular interventions on children born preterm, a few investigations have assessed the effectiveness of play therapy to compensate for the delayed motor development in these children. This study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of play therapy on motor skills of 2-4-year-old-children born preterm (32 to 37 weeks) in Amol, Iran.

This study was conducted based on a pre-and post-test method with a control group. The experimental group (n=10) participated in 24 1-hour sessions (3 sessions per week). On the other hand, the control group (n=10) received no intervention. Peabody Development Motor Scale (version. 2) was used to evaluate the motor skills of children ( i.e., gross and fine motor skills).

The results of the __AWT_NOKT_COMMA__ANCOVA indicated a significant difference between the experimental and control group regarding all sub-scales of gross motor skills and a sub-scale of fine motor skill (i.e., visual-motor integration) (P<__AWT_NOKT_COMMA__ 0.05).

According to the results, play therapy can be used as an effective intervention for children born preterm to compensate for their delayed motor development. Moreover, it can be employed in the intervention and rehabilitation programs developed for these children.