The purpose of this study was to find out the effects of paper craft activity program on the reduction of autistic children's attention improvement and impulsiveness.
In addition, it aimed to investigate the effects of paper folding, cutting, pastin...
The purpose of this study was to find out the effects of paper craft activity program on the reduction of autistic children's attention improvement and impulsiveness.
In addition, it aimed to investigate the effects of paper folding, cutting, pasting, crushing, rolling, tearing and scissoring on the improvement of attention along with brain development.
8 autistic children from a special school were selected as the subjects of study and the following results were obtained.
First, it has been found that autistic children have been improved to a great extent in attention, abilities to select stimulation, to transfer their attention and to maintain attention for certain time after participating in paper craft activities, even if there were individual differences.
It has been shown that paper craft activities were effective in the reduction of autistic children's attention deficit. The scores of attention deficit for 8 children became lower so that their attention deficit was reduced and the time of the perseverance of attention became 12~16 minutes longer than their initial stage. By letting them focus on paper craft activities, their excessive behaviors of constantly moving and not finishing up their assignments and attention deficit were reduced and their ability to attention was improved.
As in the prior studies of children with other disabilities, paper craft activities became a role of mediating the emotional expressions of autistic children and improving their behaviors and it has been demonstrated that the activities were effective in their concentration and participation.
Second, it has been found that the activities were effective in reducing the impulsiveness of autistic children. After comparing the pre- and post-inspection in Yale's Child Behavior Check List, 8 points were lowered so that there were effects on the reduction of impulsiveness. In the beginning, they did not get accustomed to the program and tended to move around and do whatever they wanted to do and could not wait for their turn in many cases, but as time passed, their impulsive behaviors were reduced.
Therefore, this study demonstrated that paper craft activity program was effective in the improvement of autistic children's attention and there should be further studies on how much and to what subjects it will be effective to generalize these research results.