The Effectiveness of Family-Based Sensory-Motor Games with Hand Dolls on the Verbal Skills and Social Skills of Children with Autism at the Nedaye Asr Center in Tehran

The present research was conducted with the aim of investigating the effectiveness of family-based sensory-motor games on children with autism. The research method was of quasi-experimental type with pre-test and post-test plan with control group. The statistical population of this research included male and female students aged 6 to 10 years old with autism disorder in the Nedaye Asr Center in Tehran and by sampling through simple random method 30 people (15 people experimental, 15 people control) were selected. The program of the effectiveness of family-centered sensory-motor games with the hand dolls was performed for 21 sessions of 45 to 60 minutes during two months for the experimental group. To collect data, Gilliam's Autism Diagnostic Test, social skills scale, and verbal skill scale have been used. For data analysis, the descriptive statistics of mean and standard deviation and the inferential statistics of Levene's test, Kolmogorov-Smirnov, analysis of covariance were used. The results of this research indicate that there is a statistically significant difference between the verbal skills and social skills of autistic children before and after the intervention. There is a significant difference in the subscales of the social skills of appropriate social behavior, non-social behavior, aggression and impulsive behavior, having high self-confidence, and communication with peers (p <0.001). And there is a significant difference in the verbal skill subscales including listening, the ability to receive and send verbal and non-verbal message, communication along with decisiveness, insight towards the communication process and emotional control (p <0.001), and it can be concluded that the family-based sensory-motor intervention program with hand dolls can be effective in increasing the verbal skills and social skills of children with autism and can be used as an effective treatment method.