The Effectiveness of Play Therapy based on Cognitive Behavioral Approach on Social Anxiety and Self-Harm Behaviors in Children with Autism Disorder

Introduction: Considering the high statistics of children with autism disorder and the many psychological problems of this group, intervention is necessary to reduce their psychological problems. As a result, the current research was conducted with the aim of determining the effectiveness of play therapy based on cognitive behavioral approach on social anxiety and self-harm behaviors in children with autism disorder. Methods: The present research was a quasi-experimental study with a pretest and posttest design with a control group. The research population was boys with autistic disorder who referred to counseling and occupational therapy centers of Ahvaz city in the second half of 2021 year, which from them number of 24 people after reviewing the inclusion criteria were selected by purposive sampling method and randomly assigned into two equal groups (each group 12 people). The experimental group trained 10 sessions of 45 minutes by play therapy based on cognitive behavioral approach method and the control group remained on the waiting list for training. Data were collected with demographic information form, Connor et al.'s social anxiety inventory (2000) and Sansone et al.'s self-harm inventory (1998) and analyzed with chi-square and multivariate analysis of covariance tests in SPSS-23 software. Results: The findings showed that there was no significant difference between the experimental and control groups in terms of age, educational grad and past time of autism disorder (P>0.05). Also, there was a significant difference between the groups in terms of social anxiety and self-harm behaviors. In the other words, play therapy based on cognitive behavioral approach significantly reduced social anxiety and self-harm behaviors in children with autism disorder (P<0.001). Conclusions: According to the results of this research, psychologists and therapists can use play therapy based on cognitive behavioral approach method along with other treatment methods to improve psychological characteristics, especially reducing social anxiety and self-harm behaviors.