Painting Therapy in Improvement of the Symptoms of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Objective: Children with autism spectrum disorder suffer from problems such as qualitative impairment in the social interactions and stereotypical behaviors and the purpose of many interventions is the dynamic involvement of the families in the treatment and rehabilitation of these children. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of educational application of family-centered painting techniques on social interactions and stereotypical behaviors of children with autism spectrum disorder. Methods: This applied experimental study was conducted using the pre-test-posttest with follow-up and control group design. In this study, 20children with autism spectrum disorder and their parents were selected by the available sampling method and then, they were randomly divided into experimental and control groups. Then, the Gilliam Autism Rating Scale-I questionnaire was applied at pre-test, posttest and follow-up stages and educational application of family-centered painting techniques was applied just for the experimental group. Then the data were analyzed by the ANCOVA and the repeated measures as statistical methods. Results: An alpha of 0.05 was considered as the significance level and the results showed a significant difference between experimental and control groups in social interactions and stereotypical behaviors of the children. Follow-up tests showed a significant difference and durability, as well. Conclusions: The results showed that educational application of family-centered painting techniques can play an effective and durable role in improvement of social interactions and stereotypical behaviors of the children with autism spectrum disorder.