The effectiveness of family-based sensory motor empowerment program on daily living skills of students with Down syndrome

Children with Down syndrome have significant limitations in various areas of their lives. Among these, daily living skills are among the areas that are important for the success of these children in living. However, a review of research evidence suggests that effective interventions such as family-based empowerment programs, have been less studied in this area. Therefore, the present study aimed to determine the effectiveness of family-based sensory-motor empowerment program on daily living skills of students with Down syndrome. The research design was semi-experimental (pretest-posttest with a control group). The population consisted of all students with Down syndrome in Kashan city in the year 2021-2022. The sample consisted of 30 students aged 8-12 years who were selected by convenience sampling method and assigned to two groups (15 experiment & 15 control). The tool included Wayland Social Development Test (1980). MANCOVA was used to analyze the data. The results showed that there was a significant difference between the experiment and control groups in terms of all components of daily living skills (p <0.01). As a conclusion, we can suggest the family-based sensory-motor empowerment program as a suitable intervention to improve the daily living skills of students with Down syndrome.