The Effect of Cooperative Puzzle Play on The Social Skills of Children With Intellectual Disabilities at Slbm Surya Gemilang Margosari Kendal
Keywords:
Cooperative Play Puzzle, Social Skills, Intellectual Disabilities, Play-Based Intervention, Social InteractionAbstract
This study examined the effect of Cooperative Play Puzzle on the social skills of children with intellectual disabilities at SLBM Surya Gemilang Margosari Kendal. A quantitative pre-experimental design with a one-group pretest–posttest approach was applied to 28 participants selected through purposive sampling. Social skills were measured using the DASST questionnaire before and after four intervention sessions conducted over two weeks. Descriptive analysis showed that the mean social-skills score increased from 46.21 at pretest to 101.25 at posttest, while the median increased from 48.00 to 102.00. The Shapiro–Wilk test indicated that both datasets were not normally distributed, with significance values of 0.002 and 0.005. Therefore, the Wilcoxon Signed-Rank Test was used and produced Z = 4.630 with p = 0.000, indicating a statistically significant difference after the intervention. These findings demonstrate that Cooperative Play Puzzle can provide structured opportunities for communication, cooperation, turn-taking, sharing, and peer interaction. The intervention may therefore serve as a practical play-based strategy to support social-skills development among children with intellectual disabilities in special-school settings. Its simple format also supports feasible implementation within routine special-school educational activities.
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References
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