The Effectiveness of Play Therapy on Deaf Children\'s Social Adaptation and Communication Skills

Objective Deafness is a disorder with many individual and interpersonal negative consequences. Therefore, proper measures should be taken to identify and implement effective programs and strategies to reduce the problems of these people. This study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of play therapy on deaf children's social adaptation and communication skills. Materials & Methods This research was a quasi-experimental study. The study population included all elementary deaf students in the city of Sari in 2011-2012. According to statistics, they comprised 40 students and the entire selected community were included in the study. Out of 40, twenty were randomly assigned in the experimental group and 20 in the control group. The experimental group were treated by game therapy during 12 weekly sessions. The study instruments were Social Skills Rating Scale and Skills Test-Revised communication were used to collect data. Results Descriptive statistics and scores of each communication skills and social adaptation of deaf children participating in this study indicated that the participants in the experimental group had a better improvement than the control group participants (P