Effectiveness of family centered play therapy on emotional-behavioral problems of children with learning disorder in primary school

The aim of present research was determine the effectiveness of family centered play therapy on emotional-behavioral problems of children with learning disorder in primary school. This research was a semi-experimental with a pre-test and post-test design with a control group. The research population was primary school students with learning disorder referring to Ataman’s counseling center of Tehran city in 2017 year. The Research sample was 32 people of them which selected through purposive sampling method and randomly assigned to two experimental and control groups. The experimental group educated 10 sessions of 45 minutes by family centered play therapy. Groups completed the Rutter’s emotional-behavioral problems scale in the pre-test and post-test stages. Data was analyzed with multivariate analysis of covariance (MANCOVA) method. The findings showed that there was a significant difference between the experimental and control groups in all emotional-behavioral problems of children. In the other words family centered play therapy method significantly led to decrease the problems of aggression and hyperactivity, anxiety and depression, social maladjustment, antisocial behaviors and attention shortage of children with learning disorder (P<0/001). Therefore family centered play therapy method led to decrease the emotional-behavioral problems of children with learning disorder.