Effectiveness of Family-Centered Art Therapy Program in Marital Satisfaction of Children with Autism SpectrumDisorder s Parents

Objective: This study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of the family-centered art therapy program inmarital satisfaction of children with autism spectrum disorder s parents.Materials & Methods: in this applied experimental study the pre-test-posttest with follow-up and control groupdesign was used. In this study, 20 children with autism spectrum disorder and their parents were selected by theavailable sampling method and then, they were randomly divided into the experimental and control groups. Thefamily-centered art therapy program was applied just for the experimental group. And for collecting the data,the Afrooz Marital Satisfaction Scale was used at pre-test, post-test, and follow-up stages. Data were analyzedby the ANCOVA and the repeated measures; in addition, there was a significant difference betweenexperimental and control groups.Results: In conjunction with the marital Satisfaction among fathers and mother in the alpha level = 0.05, thereis a significant difference between the experimental and control groups. But a repeated measures analysis didnot show any significant difference.Conclusion: The findings of this study showed that the family-centered art therapy program cannot be effectivein the marital satisfaction of the Children with autism spectrum disorder’s Mothers and Fathers in the longterm,but has been effective just in the short period.

کلیدواژه ها:

Family-centered art therapy program ، Autism Spectrum Diosrder ، Marital Satisfaction