Effectiveness of Play on Reducing Social Anxiety and Increasing the Emotional Insight of Children with Impairment Sensory-motor

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of play therapy on reducing social anxiety and increasing emotional insight in children with sensory-motor disorder in elementary school of Arak.

The method of this quasi-experimental research was pre-test, post-test and 2-month follow-up. The statistical population consisted of all children with sensory and motor disorders in Arak City who received educational and rehabilitation services in the academic year 2018-2019. The sample consisted of 26 students with sensory and motor disorders who were selected by simple random sampling method and divided into experimental and control groups. The experimental group received an eight-session intervention in 70 minute weekly sessions and the control group did not receive any intervention. Watson and Freundchr('39')s Social Anxiety Scale and Shiring Emotional Insight Questionnaire were used to collect the required data. Repeated measures analysis of covariance was used to analyze the data.

The results of repeated measures analysis of covariance showed that play therapy can decrease social anxiety and increase emotional insight in children with sensory-motor disorder (P≤0/001).

The results have important direct and implicit clinical applications in improving emotional insight and reducing social anxiety in children with physical and motor disabilities.