Impact of Drama as a Therapy for Teaching Social-Communication Skills on Children with ASD

Abstract

Drama as a therapy has numerous research studies to prove its significance. This therapy and studies related to it were however limited to the west. In recent times the trend of using drama as a therapeutic tool for children with ASD has gained quite favorable responses. One of the few therapists who were instrumental in bringing this technique to India was Dr. Parasuram Ramamoorthi with setting up a centre for Autism at Madurai, Tamil Nadu. Drama therapy has distinct benefits when it comes to the special needs population. Studies have suggested that theatre based therapy can bring about improvements in the social deficits of autism. This study was hence undertaken to find out the effectiveness of drama in improving social and communication skills in children with ASD and to compare the improvement in social and communication skills in a group of ASD students taught using drama and a group of ASD students using conventional methods. The result of the study reveals that using drama as a therapeutic tool can be beneficial to teach social and emotional skills to children with autism. This also leads to a conclusion that innovative techniques like these if used in the classroom as well as therapy settings, can lead to better learning.