Background: The purpose of this study is to investigate the effectiveness of play therapy on life skills of children with intellectual disability.

Method: The design of the study was semi- experimental with pretest-posttest and control group. The study was carried out on 30 children with intellectual disability (under 14 years) in Sarpolzahab educational center, in 1394. Subjects were randomly selected through available sampling and were randomly divided into two groups. The experimental group which consisted of 15 participants received play therapy for 16 sessions of 90-minutes, while 15 participants in the control group did not receive any special treatment. Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scale was used to gather data in pre and post-test stages. The obtained data was analyzed using analysis of covariance.

Results: The comparison between the means of the experimental and the control group showed significant differences after the life skills training.

Conclusion: It is suggested that play therapy can be applied in order to improve life skills of the students with intellectual disability.