نشریه توانمندسازی کودکان استثنایی
سال پنجم شماره 1 (بهار 1393)

Autism is a disorder of neural development, characterized by impaired social interaction, verbal and nonverbal communication, restricted and repetitive behavior. The main purpose of this study was to determine the effectiveness of Horse-assisted therapy on developing social skills for a child with autism and its impact on mother's quality of life and mental health. This was designed as a single subject study on a 7 year old boy with autism. Assessment tools were "the special booklet of social skills of mental retarded pre school students, “Social Skills Rating System (SSRS)”, “General Health Questionnaire GHQ”, and also “World Health Organization Quality of Life Brief Scale" for measuring the mother's quality of life. The intervention program included Activities, playing with horses and riding a horse during fifteen weeks. Collected data from pre-test, post-test and follow-up assessment were analysed by ancova. The results showed that the Horse-assisted therapy could facilitate the development of Language skills, social skills, sensory and cognitive awareness, reduce problematic and stereotyped behaviors, and increase child's physical health, it can also improve mother's mental health, social functioning, quality of life, and reduces negative mood

In this Research, the "standardized cognitive Ability tests for children with learning Disability Woodcock - Johnson" was considered to be the instrument through the screening , Diagnostic and identification of learning disabilities on the one hand and on the other hand Scholastic Aptitude Clinical Student design and be accredited. Hence, the Quota Stratified sampling plan with an emphasis on the contribution of layers gender , education and location in Tehran province, and clinical Group (learning disability), were sampled. Thus the 360 people with a learning disability in clinical samples were tested, and analyzes related psychometric tests 10 were in the areas of reliability and validity. Psychometric findings indicate that the Instrument in clinical Group validation of learning disability (internal consistency and Stability), criterion validity ( of the same type), and diagnostic validity is discriminant validity, while emphasizing the ability of hierarchical models Confirmatory factor analysis of the cognitive and the Construct validity is not important. While the results of analyzes related psychometric diagnostic validity of the instrument as a result of diagnostic validity study as well as providing school -based learning are Composit. The Composit, a set of four diagnostic tests for screening and diagnosis of learning disability is a learning disability in elementary school