Comparing the Effectiveness of Parent Education Based on Field’s Verbal Information Model and Play Therapy Based on Parent-Child Interaction on Increasing Social Skills of Children with Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder: A Randomized Controlled Tri

Social problems are one of the most prominent features of children with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). The present study aims to compare the effectiveness of parental education based on Field’s Verbal Information Model and play therapy based on parent-child interaction on increasing social skills of children with AHDH in Isfahan, Iran.

This was a randomized controlled trial in which the statistical population consisted of 5 to 6-year old children with ADHD and their mothers in 2018-2019 who were selected via the purposive and convenience sampling method from counseling and psychological services centers. The subjects were randomly divided into two experimental groups and one control group. The Child Symptom Inventory-4 (CSI-4) was employed for screening children and Social Skills Rating System (SSRS; Gresham & Elliott, 1990) for data collection. Data were analyzed using the analysis ofcovariance (ANCOVA) test.

The results showed that there was a significant difference in social skills of children with ADHD, between the group of intervention based on verbal information and parent-child interactive play and control group (P = 0.0001). In addition, there was a significant difference between the group of intervention based on field verbal information and interactive play (P = 0.0001). Given the mean scores of social skills, the effect of interactive play was higher than (M = 60.23) interventions based on the Field’s verbal information.

The results indicated that both interventions were effective on increasing social skills of children with ADHD. Therefore, the abovementioned methods can be used in counseling and psychological services and parent-child training workshops to enhance the social skills of children with attention ADHD.