درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

  Objective : Autism spectrum disorder is a complex neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by communication problems, limited social interactions, and repetitive behaviors. The present study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of play therapy education with a parent-child approach in improving social skills in children with autism spectrum disorder. Methods: This study was a quasi-experimental study with a pre-test-post-test design, a control group, and a follow-up phase. The statistical population of the study included children with autism at the Justice Center in Isfahan. The sample of the present study included 30 children with autism, including 30 children with autism, who were selected using purposive sampling and were divided into two experimental and control groups. The research instrument used was the Autism Social Skills Profile (ASSP), and play therapy education sessions with a parent-child approach were implemented in ten 90-minute sessions once a week on the experimental group. The research data were analyzed using repeated measures analysis of variance and Bonferroni post hoc test and SPSS version 24 software. Results: The research findings showed that the difference between the experimental and control groups in terms of the mean scores of social skills variables in all stages of the experiment was significant (P<0.001). Conclusion: The results of this study show that play therapy education with a parent-child approach can help improve children's social skills. Therefore, its use is recommended to strengthen social skills in children with autism spectrum disorder. Objective : Autism spectrum disorder is a complex neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by communication problems, limited social interactions, and repetitive behaviors. The present study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of play therapy education with a parent-child approach in improving social skills in children with autism spectrum disorder. Methods: This study was a quasi-experimental study with a pre-test-post-test design, a control group, and a follow-up phase. The statistical population of the study included children with autism at the Justice Center in Isfahan. The sample of the present study included 30 children with autism, including 30 children with autism, who were selected using purposive sampling and were divided into two experimental and control groups. The research instrument used was the Autism Social Skills Profile (ASSP), and play therapy education sessions with a parent-child approach were implemented in ten 90-minute sessions once a week on the experimental group. The research data were analyzed using repeated measures analysis of variance and Bonferroni post hoc test and SPSS version 24 software. Results: The research findings showed that the difference between the experimental and control groups in terms of the mean scores of social skills variables in all stages of the experiment was significant (P<0.001). Conclusion: The results of this study show that play therapy education with a parent-child approach can help improve children's social skills. Therefore, its use is recommended to strengthen social skills in children with autism spectrum disorder.

 Objective: Reports showed that a cognitive-behavioral therapy effectively helps patients overcome a wide variety of maladaptive behaviors such as anxiety. The aim of the present study was to further examine this issue by exploring the effects of a cognitive-behavioral therapy on academic anxiety of children with learning disorders.Methods: The quasi-experimental research design was pretest-posttest with a control group. The statistical population included 32 children (9-13 years) with academic anxiety (mild, moderate and severe) who were selected by convenience sampling method and randomly (using a coin-throwing method) assigned to two experimental and control groups. The standard School Anxiety Scale questionnaire was used to measure academic anxiety. The behavioral-cognitive therapy program was implemented for 12 sessions, 3 sessions of 45 minutes each week for the experimental group. After the intervention, all participants participated in posttest. Paired sample t test, independent t test, and analysis of covariance were used to analyze data.Results: The average of academic anxiety before the intervention in the experimental and control groups was 23.94±2.18 and 22.87±3.64, respectively, and the independent t-test did not show a significant difference (P=0.39). The average of the groups shows that the academic anxiety scores of the experimental group have decreased compared to the pre-test scores (t=16.58, P<0.001). Finally, the results of ANCOVA showed that a cognitive-behavioral therapy has led to a reduction in academic anxiety (P<0.001).Conclusion: Reconstructing children’s thoughts and beliefs helps them to identify their wrong thoughts about the exam and gradually replace them with correct beliefs and thoughts. Therefore, teachers and practitioners can use cognitive-behavioral therapy to help children with learning disorders to have less anxiety without feeling hurt from the negative evaluation of others. 

Introduction and Objective: The Multidimensional Orientation Toward Dying and Death Inventory (MODDI-F) is a 47-item self-report scale. This study aimed to assess the psychometric properties of the MODDI-F in a sample of Muslims. Research Methodology: In this study, which was a cross-sectional design, 465 individuals (220 men and 245 women) were selected by random sampling and completed the Death Anxiety Scale (DAS), the Death Obsession Scale (DOS), the Death Depression Scale (DDS), and the MODDI-F. Data were analyzed using principal component analysis and multiple analyses of variance (MANOVA). Findings: The factor analysis results using principal component analysis (PCA) showed that the MODDI-F was a multidimensional scale and four factors including fear of oneself death, fear of other’s death, death loneliness, and death acceptance explained the most variances respectively. Females had higher scores on the MODDI-F than males. In order to examine concurrent validity of the MODDI-F, the relations of the MODDI-F to the DAS, the DOS, and the DDS were investigated. The results showed that the MODDI-F had an appropriate concurrent validity. In addition, three types of reliability (test-retest, split-half, and internal consistency) were reported. Conclusion: Considering desirable psychometric properties of the MODDI-F in the present study, this scale can be used in research on death among Iranian people.

Most studies on placebo mechanisms rely on Expectancy Theory, which suggests that conceptual expectations can bring about physiological change. However, the exact processes underlying this effect remain unclear. Perceptual Symbol Systems (PSS) Theory, grounded in Embodied Cognition Theory, offers a more specific explanation: mental representations grounded in sensory-motor systems may directly evoke bodily responses. This study tested whether embodied primes, based on PSS Theory, elicit stronger placebo responses than traditional expectancy-based suggestions. Using a within-subjects design, 71 university students underwent a cold pressure task under three conditions: (1) verbal suggestion of an analgesic cream, (2) visual priming with a photo of a person looking upward, and (3) combined visual-motor priming, where participants also looked upward themselves. The placebo response was measured by changes in pain intensity and heart rate. Results showed that both embodied conditions (visual and visual-motor priming) produced stronger placebo responses than the verbal suggestion condition, as indicated by lower pain intensity and reduced heart rate (F(2,140)=5.83; p<.01). However, the difference between the two embodied conditions was not statistically significant in terms of pain ratings. Notably, visual-motor priming led to a greater reduction in heart rate than visual priming alone (F(6,330)=1.99; p=.06), suggesting a subtle additive effect of motor engagement. These findings support the role of unconscious embodied processes—specifically, perceptual and motor representations—in modulating placebo responses. They offer a promising direction for understanding how non-verbal bodily cues may influence the complex perception of pain.

Objective: The purpose of this study was to compare the effectiveness of cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) and metaphor therapy on marital burnout in women with marital conflicts. Methods: The research method was quasi-experimental with a pretest-posttest design, a control group, and a three-month follow-up period. The statistical population included women with marital conflicts who visited counseling centers in Shiraz in 2023. A total of 60 participants were selected voluntarily and randomly assigned to two experimental groups and one control group. The research instrument was the Marital Burnout Questionnaire (Pines, 1996, CBM). The educational interventions, based on the cognitive-behavioral approach (Gehart, 2012) and the metaphor-based approach (Coup, 2013), were conducted in eight 60-minute sessions for the two experimental groups. Data were analyzed using repeated-measures ANOVA. Findings: The results indicated a significant difference in the posttest and follow-up stages between the control group and the CBT group (p < .001) and the metaphor therapy group (p < .001). The effectiveness of CBT and metaphor therapy in improving marital burnout was 59.6% and 29.7% in the posttest, and 69.2% and 34.8% in the follow-up stage, respectively. Additionally, the findings showed a significant difference between the two experimental groups in both the posttest and follow-up stages, with differences of 26.3% and 37.1%, respectively. Conclusion: Based on the findings, it can be concluded that both CBT and metaphor therapy lead to improvements in marital burnout among women. Family therapists can utilize these educational approaches to enhance marital relationships in couples experiencing conflicts.

Objective: The present study aimed to compare the effectiveness of reality therapy and emotion-focused therapy (EFT) on love trauma syndrome, self-worth, and relationship beliefs in divorced women residing in Tehran. Methods and Materials: This research is applied in terms of purpose and quasi-experimental in terms of data collection, using a pretest-posttest-follow-up design with a control group. The statistical population included all divorced women residing in District 2 of Tehran in 2023, from whom 45 participants were selected through convenience sampling. The participants were randomly assigned, with age-matching, into two intervention groups and one control group. Participants completed the Relationship Beliefs Questionnaire, Ross's Love Trauma Syndrome Questionnaire, and the Self-Worth Questionnaire at pretest, posttest, and follow-up phases. The first intervention group received 8 sessions of reality therapy, while the second group received 10 sessions of emotion-focused therapy. Data were analyzed using repeated measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) with SPSS version 22. Findings: Both reality therapy and emotion-focused therapy were effective in enhancing self-worth, improving relationship beliefs, and reducing love trauma syndrome symptoms among divorced women in Tehran. Moreover, the effectiveness of both treatments persisted over time. No significant difference was found between the effectiveness of reality therapy and emotion-focused therapy on the studied variables. Conclusion: Based on the results, it can be concluded that both reality therapy and emotion-focused therapy are effective interventions for improving love trauma syndrome symptoms, enhancing self-worth, and modifying relationship beliefs in divorced women in Tehran