Investigating the effect of storytelling with Role Playing methods on communication and social skills of children with autism

Background: Autism spectrum disorder is the most commonly occurring growth disorder. A deficiency in social skills, interests, behaviour and repetitive and limited actions, and a deficiency in communication and social interactions are the hallmarks of autism. Materials and Methods: this research was a one-group semi-experimental study run by storytelling with a role playing method on studied units. The target population in this study were all patients with autism, who had registered in autism centers in Khorramabad city in 1396 (2017). 30 autistic children aged 6-16 years were selected using an available sampling method. The children were divided into 6 groups of 5 people. The intervention was conducted during 15 sessions of 45 minutes for each group, with a maximum of three stories in each session performed by the Carroll Gray method (a total of 90 sessions in two months). The data was collected and then processed by the ATEC questionnaire before and after the intervention. Results: The results of analytical tests showed that the communication and social skills of the children before and after the intervention had a significant difference. A communication skill (speech, language, and communication) mean of 0.885 before the intervention, was followed by one of 1.2 afterwards. The correlation between the responses before and after was 0.532, which is significant, with Sig= 0.002. The social skills mean of 0.885 before the intervention, was followed by one of 1.2 afterwards. In this context. The correlation between the responses before and after was 0/684 which is significant, with Sig = 0.000. Conclusion: The findings show that storytelling with a role play method is one of the most effective and economical therapeutic interventions for improving the communication and social function of children with autism.