Asian Journal of Nursing Education and Research

Seeja Jacob ¹, V. Brinda ²

Affiliations
1 Dept of Community Health Nursing, Jubilee Mission College of Nursing, Thrissur, Kerala, IN
2 Dept of Community Health Nursing, Sree Rama Krishna Institute of Paramedical Science, Coimbatore, IN

Abstract

The effect of non-directive play therapy on development was examined among mentally challenged children in selected institutions of Coimbatore. The research design adopted for this study was Quasi-experimental, pre-test post-test control group design. Stratified random sampling was adopted to choose the sample. The population was divided into three strata based on the level of Intelligent Quotient (I.Q) such as mild, moderate and severe mental retardation. There was only one sample in the first strata and it was excluded from the study (mild). The second strata consist of 14 participants (moderate) and third strata consist of 2 participants (severe). On lottery method from each stratum, equal numbers of samples (8) were alternatively allocated to experimental and control group respectively. The developmental level of mentally challenged children was assessed using Developmental Delay Preschool Scale (American speech-language-hearing association 1983). Non-directive play therapy was imparted as an intervention for a period of 21 days. The post-test was conducted to assess the effect of non-directive play therapy using the same scale. Appropriate statistical technique was used to test the hypotheses. The findings reveal that there is a significant difference in the development between the experimental and control group after non- directive play therapy. Thus, the intervention was found to have an effect on the development of mentally challenged children.

Keywords

Mentally Challenged Children, Non-directive Play Therapy, development Level.

Full Text