Comparing the effectiveness of cognitive-based play therapy and interactive play therapy on the cognitive flexibility of female students with special learning disabilities

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

1 Ph.d. student of Educational Psychology , Department of Psychology, Sari Branch , Islamic Azad University, Sari ,Iran.

2 Professor, Department of Psychology , Sari Branch, Islamic Azad University, Sari, Iran.

3 Assistant Professor، Department of Psychology , Sari Branch, Islamic Azad University, Sari, Iran.

Abstract

Introduction: Specific learning disorder encompasses a heterogeneous group of children who face difficulties in various domains. The present study aimed to compare the effectiveness of cognitive therapy-based play therapy and interaction-centered play therapy on the cognitive flexibility of female students with specific learning disorder. The research method was a quasi-experimental design with a pretest-posttest control group and a three-month follow-up phase. The statistical population included 54 first-grade female students diagnosed with specific learning disorder who had cases in the Educational Counseling Center of Qom city in 2023. A total of 45 students were selected through purposive sampling and randomly assigned to three groups: two experimental groups and one control group, with 15 students in each. The Cognitive Flexibility Questionnaire by Dennis and Vander Wal (2010) was used in this study. The interaction-centered play therapy group received 21 sessions of 45 minutes each based on the Jernberg and Booth (2010) protocol, and the cognitive therapy-based play therapy group received 10 sessions of 60 minutes each based on the Mohammad Esmail (2008) protocol. No intervention was provided for the control group. Data were analyzed using mixed repeated measures ANOVA and Tukey’s post-hoc test with SPSS18 software. The findings indicated that both cognitive therapy-based play therapy and interaction-centered play therapy had a significant effect on the cognitive flexibility of female students with specific learning disorder (P ≤ 0.01). However, cognitive therapy-based play therapy was more effective in enhancing cognitive flexibility than interaction-centered play therapy (P ≤ 0.01). This study provides practical implications for psychologists and counselors, highlighting the greater impact of cognitive therapy-based play therapy on cognitive flexibility.

Keywords

medical journal of mashhad university of medical sciences
Volume 67, Issue 3
May and June 2024

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