The Effectiveness of Puppet Play Therapy On Increasing Communication Skills Through Social Stories for Children with Autism in Rasht

Purpose: Autism is a neuro-developmental disorder that appears in the first three years of life and its main characteristic is a defect in communication and social interactions. Autism affects people's understanding of the world and their interactions with people. Communication skills are one of the most important issues for patients with this disorder, which itself requires therapeutic intervention. The purpose of this research is to determine the effectiveness of puppet play therapy on increasing communication skills through social stories for children with autism in Rasht. Methodology: The current research is practical in terms of its purpose and semi-experimental in terms of data collection. The statistical population of the present study is children from autism schools in Rasht, all of whom were diagnosed with autism by a psychiatrist. A certain number of them were selected as the study sample. 15 of them were randomly selected for the experimental and control groups. Communication skills questionnaires were administered simultaneously for both groups. Then, 16 sessions of training program were implemented in a 45-minute class period for the experimental group, and the control group did not receive any training. Then the mentioned questionnaire was implemented again for the both groups. Multivariate covariance analysis was used to analyze the research findings and test the research hypotheses. Findings: The obtained results show that according to the evaluation of parents' and teachers' opinions regarding the comparison of the communication skills scores of these children, the level of communication skills scores is much higher than the control group, which means that the mentioned training course was effective. According the findings, it can be said that the puppet play therapy is effective and useful in increasing the communication skills of autistic children with the help of social stories. It is also effective in improving cooperation, assertiveness and self-control, so this approach can be used to support the communication skills of autistic children. Originality/Value: This study was conducted in order to investigate the effect of puppet play therapy on increasing the communication skills of children with autism, through the use of social stories in autism schools of Rasht city, and the results indicate the improvement of their communication skills and the acceptable effectiveness of this method.