Middle Eastern Journal of Disability Studies

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Mirzaie Ranjbarr R, Norouzi G, Abedi A, Ashori M. The Effectiveness of Intervention Based on Play Therapy on the Social Skills and Problems Behaviors in Children with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (Meta-Analysis). MEJDS 2018; 8 :29-29
URL: http://jdisabilstud.org/article-1-1013-en.html

Background & Objective: Intellectual and developmental disability is widely recognized as one of the most common disabilities. Most professionals rely on criteria from the American Psychiatric Association (APA), Diagnostic and Statistical Manual Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5), to determine whether an individual has intellectual and developmental disabilities. Intellectual and developmental disability is characterized by significant limitations both in intellectual functions and adaptive behaviors as expressed in conceptual, social, and practical adaptive skills. This disability originates before 18 years old. Children with intellectual and developmental disabilities have limitations in cognitive function and deficits in their skills in several areas such as friendships, emotion, cognitive, motor, psychosocial, language, and specific activities. Limitations in social skills is a common characteristic in children with intellectual and developmental disabilities, since intellectual and developmental disabilities effects on cognitive development as well as behavior skills. Unfortunately, the negative social status experienced by children with intellectual and developmental disabilities is difficult to overcome and is usually long-lasting. Adding to their socialization problems, many children with intellectual and developmental disabilities also have behavioral problems and social difficulties with their parents, siblings, and teachers. The enduring nature of social reaction easily leads to social isolation. It seems that play therapy could reduce the behavioral problems of children with intellectual and developmental disabilities. The play is one method for treating children with intellectual and developmental disabilities because these children are often facing with main behavior problems. In recent years, intervention results of children with intellectual and developmental disabilities have been examined in many studies. One of the effective interventions for this group of children is intervention based on play therapy. In some clinical trials and different studies have been measured the effectiveness of an intervention based on play therapy on the problems behaviors in children with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Pay attention to that results of these researches are different. Therefore, the use of meta-analysis in this area is necessary. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the rate of the effect size of the efficacy of an intervention based on play therapy on the behavioral problems and social skills of children with intellectual and developmental disabilities. This meta-analysis research aimed to determine the effectiveness of an intervention based on play therapy on the problems behaviors in children with intellectual and developmental disabilities in Iran.
Methods: The present research was a meta-analysis study. Before effect size of mean difference analysis, to determine the decision tree model was used PRISMA method. So, at this research by using a technique of meta-analysis to integrate the results of different studies, to determine the effect size of intervention based on play therapy. 11 studies of 18 studies were done in Iran, published at SID, IranMedex, IranDoc, Google Scholar and Magiran during 2001-2018 and accepted pay attention to inclusion and exclusion criteria and also methodology were collected and analyzed through meta-analysis. The research tool was a meta-analysis checklist. The effect size of each research calculated with having mean, variance and standard deviation of the group. For descriptive information was used meta-analysis checklist and for analyses of data was used effect size technique. For assessment of publication bias was used funnel chart, for assessment expected confidence rate was used number fail-safe and for investigation of the heterogeneity of effect size was used Q Cochran’s test. Data were analyzed through the descriptive statistics and studies effect size using comprehensive meta-analysis (CMA) software.
Results: The study findings showed that the effect size of mean difference intervention based on play therapy on the problems behaviors was 0.61 (p≤0.001) which according to Cohen’s table was high.
Conclusion: Findings of this meta-analysis research support of the effectiveness of an intervention based on play therapy on the problems behaviors in children with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Therefore, intervention based on play therapy can reduce behavioral problems and improve the social skills of children with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Then, it is recommended that planning play therapy for children with intellectual and developmental disabilities receives serious attention. It seems that the educational programs based on play therapy can be used as a method for a decrease of behavioral problems of these children in training centers such as schools.