Comparing the effectiveness of group play therapy based on cognitive-behavioral approach and story therapy on physical, relational and verbal aggression of Educable mentally retarded students

The present study was conducted with the aim of comparing the effectiveness of cognitive-behavioral game therapy and story therapy on physical, relational and verbal aggression of mentally retarded students. This research was a semi-experimental study with a pre-test, post-test and control group design. The statistical population of this research includes all students with intellectual disabilities who were studying in Golestan Exceptional Primary School in Tabriz. The available sampling method was used to select the sample. Therefore, the statistical sample consisted of 45 elementary school boys who were randomly selected (15 students per group) with random replacement in experimental and control groups. In order to collect data, the aggression scale of Shahim primary school children (1387) was used. One of the experimental groups received the game therapy educational program (8 sessions of 45-minute cognitive-behavioral game therapy), the next group did not receive the educational program of story therapy (8 sessions of 45 minutes of story therapy) and the control group did not receive the educational program. The results of covariance analysis showed that there is a significant difference between cognitive-behavioral game therapy and story therapy with the control group in aggression components (0.001). Also, story therapy was more effective than cognitive-behavioral game therapy in reducing aggression with an effectiveness factor of 76%. Based on this, it can be concluded that story therapy and cognitive-behavioral game therapy can be used as complementary interventions to reduce and improve the psychological problems of mentally challenged students.