Play Therapy as an Intervention for Children with Mental Retardation

Abstract

Children with mental retardation are a heterogeneous group of individuals with disorders that share many characteristics, particularly a great difficulty in learning almost all skills. They are children with special needs and as such, these needs have to be addressed. Play therapy is an intervention, among the many, that is available for children with mental retardation. Through participant — observation, the researcher presents in this study, a narrative description of play therapy as an intervention for children with mental retardation. Part of this study describes the dynamics of play therapy — its characteristics, the techniques and strategies employed, activities, the roles and the relationship of the individuals involved, and the typical problems and solutions. It is also the objective of this study, aside from describing the dynamics in play therapy, to assess play therapy as an intervention for children with mental retardation by determining the areas in the three domains of abilities of the children with mental retardation that were improved upon participating in play therapy sessions. Out of this, recommendations were made. Children 4-6 years of age were the study population. Children with mental retardation were compared with normal children of the same age range to determine if there is a significant difference between their abilities. This is based on the assumption that the abilities of the children with mental retardation will be improved by participating in the play therapy sessions. The abilities of the normal children served as the baseline data. Fourteen (14) children (7 from the normal or the control group and 7 from the children with mental retardation or the experimental group) from the Village Christian Alliance School and the Special Education Unit of the Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, respectively, participated in the study. The research utilized the non-equivalent-control-group-post-test-only design. Scores of the two (2) groups yielded from a 60-item-5-point Likert Scale determining the abilities of children in the three (3) domains were subjected to t-test (test of two independent samples). It was found out that play therapy helped improve the areas of obedience, attachment and independence, peer orientation, affective communication, helping behavior, and taking turns, all in the social-behavioral domain. Statistically, no improvements can be concluded in the areas of the cognitive and motor domains. The researcher also conducted interviews to probe on the improvements that could be seen in the capabilities of children with mental retardation upon participation in the play therapy sessions. Three (3) parents of the children with mental retardation served as informants. The data that were gathered were incorporated with the discussion of results. The researcher found out that parents have seen and value these improvements in the abilities of their children in the three (3) domains. Based from the results. play therapy is recommended as an intervention for children with mental retardation.