the impact of sandplay therapy on perceptual reasoning and neuropsychological functioning in children with autism: a randomized controlled trial

This study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of sandplay therapy on enhancing perceptual reasoning and neuropsychological functioning in children with autism spectrum disorder (asd). a randomized controlled trial design was used, involving 30 children aged 6-12 years diagnosed with asd. participants were randomly assigned to either the intervention group (n=15) or the control group (n=15). the intervention group received eight 90-minute sessions of sandplay therapy over two months, while the control group received standard care. the wechsler intelligence scale for children (wisc-v) and nepsy-ii were used to measure perceptual reasoning and neuropsychological functioning, respectively, at baseline, post-intervention, and five-month follow-up. data were analyzed using mixed-design anova with repeated measurements and bonferroni post-hoc tests in spss-27. descriptive statistics showed significant improvements in the intervention group for both perceptual reasoning (m=95.53, sd=7.48 at baseline to m=107.45, sd=8.21 post-intervention) and neuropsychological functioning (m=89.74, sd=6.95 at baseline to m=101.29, sd=7.56 post-intervention). mixed-design anova revealed significant main effects of time (f(2, 56)=30.15, p<.001, η²=0.52 for perceptual reasoning; f(2, 56)=32.75, p<.001, η²=0.54 for neuropsychological functioning) and group-by-time interactions (f(2, 56)=24.12, p<.001, η²=0.47 for perceptual reasoning; f(2, 56)=28.75, p<.001, η²=0.50 for neuropsychological functioning). bonferroni post-hoc tests confirmed significant differences between baseline and post-intervention (p<.001) and baseline and follow-up (p<.001) for the intervention group. sandplay therapy significantly enhances perceptual reasoning and neuropsychological functioning in children with asd. these improvements were sustained at follow-up, suggesting that sandplay therapy is an effective and sustainable intervention for this population.