Effect of story-telling on preschool children’s depression and aggression

Introduction: According to effectiveness of story-telling in children’s psychological problems, this research conducted to assess the effectiveness of story telling aggression and depression in pre-school children.
 Materials and Methods: The statistical community of this clinical trial included preschool children (4-6 years) in kindergartens of Saveh city in 2013. So, 40 children selected among those who had high scores of aggression and depression based on Rutter’s children behavioral problems checklist by available sampling method. Then they were divided into two equal experimental and control groups. After implementing the pre-test, the story-telling treatment conducted in 12 sessions with duration of 60 minutes (twice a week) for experimental group. After end of sessions, the post-test and one month later, follow-up test were done. For analyzing the data, descriptive statistics, the variance analysis with repetitious sizes and SPSS software were used.  
 Results: The results showed that pre-test scores of depression and aggression were not different significantlly (P>0.05) but these scores decreased in story-telling group compared to control group (P=0.01) and this effect continoued in follow-up test.
Conclusion: It seems that story-telling can reduce preschool children’s aggression and depression and it can be used as an effective technique for behavioral disorders in children.