Abstract:
Children with autism was difficult in imitating the skills taught by the therapist, and also have
difficulties to express their imagination. When they playing, most children with autism are not focus
to the game and the development of fine motor skills, they have difficulty in grasping, opening and
closing the first two hands, fighting finger, thumb fighting, and wiggled her fingers. One of the
factors that influence the development of fine motor stimulation is given such play activities
because playing is afun activity and can stimulate the child's fine motor development. The purpose
of this study was to determine the effect of therapy on the development of fine motor skills in
children with autism. This type of study is pre experiment with one group pretest and posttest
design without control. The population is children with autism aged 4-6 years in the Azzamul Al
Ikhlas foundation Bukittinggi as many as 25 children, and Samples were taken by using purposive
sampling as many as 10 childred. The research instrument is the observation sheet. Analysis of
research data using univariate and bivariate analysis, with paired sample test method . The average
of univariate fine motor development of children with autism, before therapy was 8.50 and after
play therapy is 12.40 while the results of the bivariate analysis was p = 0.000 (p value of α ≤ 0.05).
It shows that there is effect of play therapy to the development of fine motor skills of children with
autism. It suggested to the therapists and parents to always motivate the children, so that children
are not forced to do so and and do it comfortably. Cooperation therapists and parents in the
treatment of children with autism will further enhance the fine motor skills of children with autism.
The therapist should be able to provide direction, motivation and guidance so that parents can
follow the program and the stages are given by the therapist.
