Assessment of effects on mandala art therapy for children with autism

Objective To study the cure functions of Mandala drawing therapy on autistic children,and to provide basis for the special mechanism of action that Mandala form works with for autistic children.Methods A total of 52 autistic children were divided into experimental group (27 children) and control group (25 children).The experimental group accepted 10-month Mandala drawing therapy while no intervention was done to the control group.The ABC(Autism Behavior Checklist),CARS(Childhood Autism Rating Scale),ATEC(Autism Treatment Evaluation Checklist),PEP-3 (Psycho-educational Profile third edition) and TheBehavior Observation was used for scoring,and the results will be analyzed and compared.Results In posttest,the experimental groups were lower than control group in the total scores and factor scores of CARS,ABC,ATEC,the difference was statistically significant(t =-2.832,-3.220,-2.145,-2.417,-2.901,-2.218,-2.079,P<0.01);The experimental group has got higher scores in " Painting will Imitation painting" "Colour painting" and "Propositional painting" than control group,the difference was statistically significant(Z=-2.688,-2.187,-2.251,-2.328,P<0.05).The experimental group has fewer numbers have "Stereotypic behavior" "Self injurious behavior Destructive behavior" "Abnormal mood" than control group,the difference was statistically significant(x2 =4.530,6.363,4.590,7.865,P<0.05).Conclusion The mandala drawing for autistic children have both effective and reasonable promotion of psychological function and behavior level.