DRAMA THERAPY AS AN INTERVENTION TO SUPPORT SOCIAL AWARENESS IN AUTISTIC CHILDREN: A CASE SERIES IN GUANGXI, CHINA

Abstract

This paper investigates the effect of drama therapy as a form of intervention to improve social awareness of children with autism from between the ages of 3-8 years old at the Guangxi Special Children Care Service Center in Guangxi China. Using an experimental methodology, 5 autistic children are chosen based on a specific level of support for ASD disorder from DSM-1 to DSM-5. A 6-month drama treatment intervention experiment is carried out where SRS 2^nd ed. Scale for Autism, Emotional Recognition Test for Autism, Development-Based Behavioral Assessment System for Children with Autism was used to record the changes before and after the intervention. The experiment involves interviewing the parents of these autistic children through in-depth interviews as well as experts’ observation of the changes that form the data for this research. There are 3 phases of observation that are pre-, progressive and post-tests after drama therapy where the data are coded and triangulated with expert’s as well as parental observations to be coded in themes and sub-themes according to case-study in qualitative research methodology to explore the effect of drama therapy. This paper however, will focus only on social awareness in children with autism. The findings of this data hope to promote a new innovative method to successfully educate and improve social awareness in children with autism. 

Keywords: Drama Therapy, Autism, China, Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis