1Department of Counseling, North Tehran Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran
2Department of Counseling, University of Guilan, Rasht, Iran
*Corresponding Author: Farhad Asghari, Department of Counseling, University of Guilan, Rasht, Iran, Email: farhad.asghari@gmail.com
Online published on 19 January, 2018.
This study is conducted to determine the effectiveness of child-centered play therapy on social anxiety and communication skills of the children who are between 5 to 6 years old.
The research design is semi-experimental with pretest-posttest and control group. The study population has been consisted of the girl and boy children of kindergarten who are between 5 to 6 years old from the Lahijan city in the year of 2016. In order to conduct this research, after the implementation of Social Anxiety Inventory for children and the Vineland Social Maturity Scale, a total of 48 subjects who had a high social anxiety and low social development have been identified and 30 subjects have been randomly selected from this population. They have been randomly assigned into two groups (15 children in the study group, (15 children in the control group). The data have been analyzed by the covariance analysis method.
The results have shown that play therapy was effective on reducing social anxiety and increasing communication skills and there is a significant difference between study group and the control group (P < 0.01). Child-centered play therapy can reduce social anxiety and increase communication skills in the preschool children.
play therapy, social anxiety, communication skills, child-centered therapy
