The Effectiveness of Cognitive-Behavioral Play Therapy on Social Anxiety and Academic Self-Concept of Stuttering Students

The present study was conducted to investigate the effectiveness of cognitive-behavioral play therapy on social anxiety and academic self-concept of elementary school students with stuttering. The method in terms of purpose, was an application and information-gathering aspect, was a semi-experimental type of pre-test, and post-test with a control group. The statistical population of this study included all primary school students in Shiraz of which 30 were selected by available sampling. The research tool was the Social Anxiety Questionnaire (LSAS-SR) and the academic self-concept questionnaire was administered to both groups, and the experimental group underwent intervention for 10 one-hour sessions. The collected data were analyzed using univariate and multivariate analysis of covariance in SPSS-24. The findings showed that there is a significant difference between the average scores of the compared groups in social anxiety in the post-test, which indicates that the average scores of social anxiety in the experimental group (53.93) compared to the control group (57.06) has significantly decreased. Also, there is a significant difference between the average scores of the compared groups in the academic self-concept in the post-exam, which indicates that the average scores of the academic self-concept in the post-exam in the experimental group (47.66) compared to the control group (43.36) ) has increased significantly. Therefore, the hypothesis of the research based on the effectiveness of cognitive-behavioral play therapy on social anxiety and academic self-concept of elementary school students with stuttering is confirmed.