The Effectiveness of Play, Group Therapy on Social Skills, Children with Autism

The aim of this study was to determine the effectiveness of group play therapy on social skills of children with autism. The method of the present study was quasi-experimental pre-test-post-test with a control group. The statistical population of the study was all girls and boys aged 6 to 10 years with autism who were the children of Aftab in the city of Quds in the academic year 2019-2020. Available and selected randomly by lottery in two groups of control (n = 12) and experimental (n = 12). The experimental group underwent group play therapy training in 20 sessions of 60 minutes per week for 2 sessions per week, but the control group did not participate in any training classes during this period. The instruments used in the pre-test and post-test were the social skills assessment questionnaire of Stone et al. (2010). Data were analyzed using SPSS software version 22 and multivariate analysis of covariance at the significance level of 0.01. The results showed that the mean of the experimental group in social skills and its components (ability to understand the emotions and feelings of others, ability to start interacting with others, ability to maintain interaction with others and ability to respond to others) was higher than the control group (p <0.01). According to the results of the study, group play therapy was effective on social skills and its components in children with autism spectrum disorder.