Effect of the Family-based Art Therapy Program on the Social Interactions, Verbal Skills and Stereotypic Behaviors of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD)

Parents of children with autism maybe anxious about the future of their child, along with anxiety, they may experience guilty feelings for having such a child. These issues can cause problems in normal family life procedure of families with autistic children (1). Due to the complex behaviors of these children, parents tend to decrease their communication and avoid from ceremonies and parties and they may be isolated (2). Family training or family-centered programs and educational interventions can cause to decrease of stress, anxiety, depression, guilt and disappointment. The families have to know that they are not the cause of disorders; therefore, they improve their communication and interaction with child and professional groups (3, 4). Among the typical strategies , Studies show that using of different forms of art therapy programmes like Painting ,clay and music, can improve cognitive, perceptional, behavioral, communication and verbal problems of children with special needs (5, 6). The art includes auditory and visual stimulus and with activating brain lobes and reinforcement of brain functions, reinforces the learning and cognition (7). The art leads to a better relationship of autistic children with environment. Moreover, the art helps the autistic children to experience their senses, and then they communicate better with others. According to the discussed issues and weakness of applied family-based programs in our country about autistic children, this study aimed to investigate how designing and performing of the family-based art therapy program affect the social interactions , verbal skills and stereotypic behaviors of these children. This study was an applicable and semi-experimental research. Pre-test and post-test with control group was used and results were followed up. Population of study includes all autistic children along with their parents who referred to exceptional schools of Tehran. Among all referred clients, 20 autistic children along with their parents select as an in access sample. In this study, the Gilliam Autism Rating Scale (GARS) was used. After randomized sampling into two groups (experimental and control), all of autistic children and their parents complete the pre-test. Then, during 15 sessions 10 children in experimental group along with their parents complete the family-based art therapy program. Moreover, the parents perform all 15 trained ses