Effect of complementary early intervention program on refugee children's self-esteem, social skill and resilience

The purpose of this research was to investigate the effects of laughter yoga as a complementary intervention program on social skill, self-esteem and resilience of refugee children. The research design was randomized controlled experimental design. Study group was choosen from refugee children, born in 2013, living in a refugee camp in southern Turkey. The sample size of the reserach was determined by Gpower analysis and the children were assigned to the experiment (n = 38) and control (n = 38) groups by randomization method considering the inclusion and exclusion criteria. In the research, "Demographic Information Form", "Early Childhood Social Skill Measure (ECSSM)", "State Self-Esteem Scale" and Child and Youth Resilience Measure-Revised (CYRM-R)" were used as a measurement tools. ECSSM was developed by the researchers and State Self-esteem Scale and CYRM-R adaptation studies were also carried out by the reserachers. In order to measure the effect of the intervention which took place 6 weeks, pre and post intervention date gathered by an independent researcher (BK). After the pre-tests were applied to the experimental and control groups by the BK, the intervention program was applied to the children in the experimental group by the researcher (NK). Repeated-measures ANOVAs was used to reveal whether there is a significant difference between the pretest and posttest of total social skill, self-esteem and resilience scores of between groups or not. The results indicated that there was a significant difference between total social skill, self-esteem and resilience scores of experimental and control groups. Based on these results current study suggests that laughter yoga intervention can be effective for enhancing psychosocial development of refugee children.