Effectiveness of Parent-Child Interaction Therapy based on Eyberg’s Approach on Anxiety and Social Skills of Children with Intellectual and Developmental Disability

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the effectiveness of parent-child Interaction therapy based on Eyberg’s approach on the anxiety and social skills of children with intelligence and developmental disability. The method of this study was the single subject, in three stages of baseline, intervention and follow-up. The statistical population included all mothers having children with intellectual and developmental disability and their children in Isfahan city, from among them,, 3boys were selected by purposive sampling method. Before implementing the intervention, the participants were evaluated 3times using Spence's preschool anxiety scale(PAS) and Matson's social skills questionnaire(MESSY). Then, the Eyberg's mother-child interaction therapy was performed for them in 15 sessions of 45 minutes, and during the sessions, they were evaluated 6 times using the mentioned tools. Moreover, after the end of the session, in order to check the durability of the intervention, they were evaluated 3more times. Finally, the data was analyzed using the method of visual analysis and effect size. The findings indicated that the anxiety of all three subjects decreased compared to the baseline and their social skills increased compared to the baseline. So that the effect size of the anxiety variable was reported for the first to third subject 1.62, 1.41 and 1.63 . In the variable of social skills, the effect size was reported 1.11, 1.47 and 0.58, respectively. Therefore, the results suggest that the parent-child Interaction therapy based on Eyberg’s approach can be used to improve children's anxiety and social skills by intelligence and development.