The effect of group sociality play in sociality of autistic adolescent

Group play for sociality is a therapeutic method involving a mixture of various factors, such as targeted activities, perceptions, and physical mobility required in daily life, through group activities to encourage self-expression for the purpose of facilitating sociality. This study was conducted in order to verify its effects by applying it to autistic adolescents who lack communicative ability with others and ultimately to improve their interpersonal relationships and sociality. This study applied a single preand post-test experiment design to 8 autistic adolescents with lack of sociality who use a daycare center in Daejeon. The group play for sociality program consisted of two sessions a week for 7 weeks from October to December 2013 for a total of 14 sessions. The sociality of the adolescents before and after the intervention was analyzed by the Wilcoxon signed-rank test. As a result of the study, the total grades of the E-CLAC and social maturity test showed significant changes from 39.88±6.78 to 47.00±4.28 and 49.96±28.00 to 61.36±21.75, respectively. In detail, there were significant changes in the sub-items, such as adjustment in group, following guidance, and increasing behavioral frequency. In conclusion, it was shown that the combined effect of the group activities, including group play for sociality and play activities taking into consideration the developmental stage of the participants, led to a significant improvement in the sociality of the autistic adolescents.