What are the effects of music therapy on children with Autism? Explain.
Over the period, music therapy is considered as one of the major service modality in association with special education. Past researches state that autism is the disease which needs help from the externals hands as it helps them to survive during their troubling time (Iseri, 2014). In this context, Colwell (2012) has mentioned in his study that this can be a critically severe crippling syndromefor the patients who are who are prohibited from being an independent individual in the surrounding society.
Though there are multiple therapies and programs which are available to medicate the autism patients the parents are burdened with the facts to figure what will be the best therapy for their children (Kour, 2012). The program and therapies ranges from physical, repetitive type to multiple extremely restraining diets. Many practitioners’ claims to assist but there were not one therapy which proved to be good for all (Lippit & Andersen, 2012). Every autistic child is very exceptional in which they can interpret and also react to their surrounding differently compared to the child next to them which adds to the encumbrance of searching for again what will be best for the child (Creighton, van der Ploeg & O’Connor, 2013).
But with all these hindrances there are some solutions to this that some therapies like auditory integration, music therapy, sensory motor and also the applied behavior analysis also do appear to be very relieving in teaching the autistic children to perform like an independent individual which will support them to open up to a new world ahead of them (Ng, 2012). The autism syndrome is described by different impairment degrees with the skills of communication, social interaction, repetitive, stereotyped and restricted behavior patterns (Dykstra, Boyd, Watson, Crais & Baranek, 2011). The autism ranges from mild set of behaviors to the severe set as it has many different types and as well as different types in the case of different ages of people (Randles, 2014).
The major issue with an autistic child is that he or she have a problem in relating to the regular social interactions which happen day in day out. They have the issue of picking up the social cues like body language, voice tone and also facial expression. When they do not possess these skills it makes it problematic for them to live in the confusing place. When a child suffers from autism they have a propensity to sing songs in a high pitched voice or in a monotone flat voice. Music therapy has proven to be the impressive process for the children to treat their autism. Music being a non-threatening method assists the autistic children to learn and also develop the required communication and the social skills which are a necessity to lead their life in future (Fleury, Thompson & Wong, 2014)
The main aim of the assignment is to investigate the use of music while an instruction that would increase the reactions of the autistic children. The primary focus of this study comprised of the social skills of the speech, turn taking and sharing and also eye contact. The change in the gestures and postures of the children will be evaluated in this study which will yield result with comparing to the previous research report on the same topic. There will be specific target for the researcher to get the
1. What is the significance of instrumental music therapy in autism?
2. Which age of the children can be treated with music belonging to autism?
3. What kind of music has deep effect on the children having different ethnicity?
Gattino, Riesgo, Longo, Leite & Faccini (2011), mentioned that the autistic children justify gaining the finest treatment and therapies that are known to provide them to grow the social skills and the skills of speaking that will be developed to the future productive life. Many children without these interventions have grown up deprived of the capability to interact or to relate with their friends who would have made them outcasts from their group. Deprived of these therapies would have made them helpless depending on others for care. The study will offer evidence in detail that the instrumental music therapy is a treatment which will show significant developments in helping the autistic children with the autism learning and also the development of speech and skills allowing them to be the ones who can lead a productive and independent life. The study will show the effects of the music therapy on the social skills and the skills of speech in the autistic children (Graham, 2015).
As discussed by Hurley, Patterson & Cooley, (2013), the music therapy is a scientific and functional relevance of the music with the help which a trained therapist in music can improve the social, educational, emotional and development of behavior of an autistic child. The trainer of the music therapy is a trained therapist in music and a certified professional music therapist who helps in the plan of treatment in the educational and medical program. The training in music therapy consists of musical classes that comprises of classes in psychology, anatomy, special education and other related key classes with the practical experiences on the field in the music therapy (Kalas, 2012). This therapy helps in communicating with the overall perception of the children having autism. The method of treatment is non-violating and non-threatening for the children during their treatment as music goes through their heart (LaGasse, 2014). The instrumental music is a good option for the children as they can concentrate method easily. Listening and further remembering the musical notes which may cure the children during the process (LaGasse & Hardy, 2013).
This portion will see the viability of the music therapy in children. It will review the recent studies and also the research done in regards to the profits of the music therapy on the autistic children (Haymes, 2013). There are multiple interventions that tell that these therapies are very much effective for a treatment that sometimes doesn’t happen as regards to the claims given and it is a consistent struggle for any autistic child to categorize with these kinds of treatments so as to search for the therapy that is effective. These false hopes of treatments cause both heartaches of the parents and families area also very much expensive. The study of music cognition is very important because the music is frequently used for both educational purpose and also for therapeutic purpose of any autistic individuals; the autistic children have a knack towards the musical sensitivities (Higgins, 2012). The search for an effective music therapy for autism is very difficult because it may so happen that one therapy has worked effectively on one autistic person only the same intervention might not work for another autistic person. Among all the process of therapies, instrumental music therapy is one of the best way to communicate with the children (Holck & Jacobsen, 2011).
According to Aharoni (2015), the use of the intervention to attain the goals of an individual within a therapeutic association by a proficient that have completed the therapy is called music therapy. It is an associated profession of health and an expressive therapy which consists of a procedure in which a therapist in music makes use of his music and all its aspects like emotional, physical, social, mental, spiritual and aesthetic to assist their clients to recover their mental and physical health. Aigen (2015) opined that these therapists principally facilitate the clients in improving their health in multiple domains like motor skills, cognitive functioning, developing emotionally, enhancing quality of life and social skills by the experiences of the music like singing, free improvisation, listening to music and proceeding towards music to attain the treatment goals. This music therapy also has a broad range of quantitative and qualitative literature review base and also integrated a psychotherapy, clinical therapy, musical acoustics, musicology, embodied music cognition, comparative musicology and sensory integration. The services of the music therapy are a referral that is given by other professionals in health care such as psychologists, physicians, occupational therapists and physical therapists (Blackburn & Bradshaw, 2014).
When the therapists gets a referral for the clients they will witness and evaluate the different areas which comprises behavioral, sensory, communicational, socio emotional and cognitive. The music therapists build and help the children o make their own goals which they can concentrate on the needs of the child. They might also execute the individualized treatment through music therapy programs along with the procedures, strategies and interventions to construct the skills which is required to attain the prime success level. Multiple music therapists work in a team with professional to address the individual requirements of the children in the best possible way (Lim & Draper, 2011). The music therapy because of its non-threatening nature has proved to be very established therapy for the autistic children with the speech development and also social interaction. The use of music with activities alongside like role playing, passing the ball or playing any musical instruments are used to substitute the interactions, however doing the other activities which concentrates on the attention can assist in increasing the eye contact. The children who are detected with autism spectrum will have qualitative impairments in the communication and social interactions accompanied by restricted stereotyped and repetitive behavioral patterns, activities and interests. (Matson, Turygin, Beighley & Matson, 2012) cited that these behaviors frequently quoted as “stemming” which will comprise of a consistent movements in a rhythmic way. According to (McIver, 2011) the music therapy can also be used to construct the range of skills which are nonmusical like cognitive and physical skills. With the disabilities like issues in sensory, communications, abnormal patterns of behavior or physical impairments there is a huge trial to the process of communication. Thus we find that there is a high level of problem in sustaining any kind of social interaction with the children who have frequently caused frustration. Music is a very valuable technique which not reaches the autistic children but also fro the children who has a delayed language. The songs which are chosen must have a melodic intonation that closely reflects the patterns of intonation of the real speech. Music that is in a structured manner has therapeutic and enjoyable experience (Preis, Arnon, Silbert & Rozegar, 2015). It was also opined by many theorists that the services of music therapy can be an effective technique that is used to assist the children on the autistic spectrum (Wong, 2012). The autistic children have a rate of huge reaction to the music as they have often increased the reaction and the interest to the music that makes it a robust tool of therapy. This therapy focuses on various issues of development that has many extents of capabilities, the establishment of reactions, interactions, expectations and communications. It is also noted by many theorists that the autistic children have relevancy of sensitivities to the music (Randles, 2014).
As commented by Lim & Draper (2011), the important fact of research methodology is a well-defined structure and sequential approach that will help the researcher to accomplish the research work successfully. Research Design is a blueprint of the work involving the plan in detail with the data collection and the analysis. There are three types of research design; exploratory, explanatory and descriptive. The researcher here has chosen the exploratory design that will assist the researcher to understand the cause and the effect of the problems of the patients during the treatment of the autism patients. The grounded theory is the main construct of explaining the method of conducting this research as a whole where researcher will use the observations method to analyze the problems and development among the patients during the treatment. The researcher in this design gets the liberty to explain the nature of the research problem, the purpose of the research with the experience and knowledge of the researcher. The research will follow the strategy of experiment of the patients in finding the problems among the autism patients’ treatment procedure. The following section will explain the research methodology adopted in the current context for conducting this research successfully.
The comparative usage of music in treating the autism among the patients with other conventional treatment is the main objective in this research. There will be three specific sessions with the patients using the treatment with music with the conventional method along with it. Other three sessions will be only using the conventional methods of treatment so that the difference between the two methods can be observed. The conventional treatment method will be running during the application of music as the problems among the patients do not get severe which might go beyond the control of the practitioners. Six sessions are to be taken which will include three sessions with using music and other three sessions will be without the music that will be primarily designed to concentrate on the detailed objective of this study (Boudreau & D’Entremont, 2010). The data will be collected using the approach of an observer while the tally marks and instruction of the regular classes that will be made for every response will be attained. The use of music tends to increment the awareness and also the attention of the participants which will possibly allow them to give more affirmative responses. The changes among the patients’ behavior after treating them with music will be the main objective in this research. The researcher will document the reactions from the patients and the deviations in their behavior periodically so that the improvement and adverse effect among the patients can be analyzed. The results might point towards the significance of the progression when the same music that will be used for some other students, the outcome is to be noted which should be compared to the traditional methods of teaching (Brown & Jellison, 2012).
There are two types of data collection method, primary data, and secondary data. Primary data is collected through the surveys and questionnaires, and secondary data is collected through blogs, journals, treatment portals, etc.
The purpose of this report is to do a study on quantitative basis with the use of data of both pre and post therapy, which will do a comparison that will evaluate the traditional strategies of teaching and the impacts of the music therapy for acquiring the interactive skills of the children having a prime analysis of autism. (Reichow, Steiner & Volkmar, 2013) the research will be conducted in observation method where the information of the patients will be assessed by their changes among the gestures and postures mainly (qualitative). Therefore, researcher will try to collect the data of reactions seen among the patienst. To collect these type of information the researcher’s ability will be the sole responsibility as the qualitative information can be judged only by the skill of the researcher. Mentioned that the objectives of the social skills were sharing or turn taking, physical or verbal interactions, eye contact along with the other kinds of interactions like moving towards friends or spontaneous speech. The objective of this study is to define whether the use of music having instructions has an increment in the reactions of the autistic children or not.
This study will include participants who will consist of five participants that mean children with autism. There will two children participants having the secondary analysis of ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) and also the ones who have been diagnosed with Apraxia. Research will be conducted with the specified sample due to analyze the specific problem related to the patients of autism where some other intervention also necessary for them. This will be a convenience analysis because all the participants are students in the classroom of the researcher and are also enrolled with a mild to the relative special class of the day. There has to be one female and four males in finding the importance of music therapy for the patients of autism as the gender specific research is necessary to find out any difference if possible for using music therapy bearing different gender for the patients (Reiersen & Handen, 2011).The range of the ages should be six to eight years of age and must be ethnically different like one child has to be Caucasian, one African, one Filipino, one American, one Asian and one Hispanic – different ethnicity must be observed to sort out the effect on the different ethnic and cultured people as well as what type of music has great impact over them. This approach will provide the researcher to find out the impact of different music and the outcome from the research will also show the door to treating different people with different culture in future. The researcher should know every student very well to give accurate results. The participants are to be deemed with the range of mild and moderate on the basis of autism spectrum according to the (Tomaino, 2013). All the five participants must have a diverse range on the scale of autism in which two of them must be the high range and the other two must be in low range (Warreyn & Roeyers, 2013). The different degree of autism among the patients will allow the researcher to draw conclusion regarding the effective rate of music at what extent on the patients during treating autism.
This study is a single subject study based on quantitative methods. The researcher should use the observations to accumulate the data in the tally marks from under the detailed categories. The research should comprise of baseline session for the conservative methods of teaching which should be followed by two other sessions other than a baseline session for music therapy which is to be tailed by other two sessions of music. The study must contain of a total of twenty-five minutes session of six slots having three sessions with music and the other three sessions without music comprising of five children participants – it is observed from the past researchers that children cannot be retained for more than 30 minutes of a session due to their impatient nature of their small age as observed in past researches (Zelazny, 2001). The children are to be observed in the first session for the baseline of each goal for the traditional method of teaching. When the three traditional methods of teaching is over it should be followed by the three sessions of music therapy (as mentioned in literature). Wheeler (2015) stated that again the first music session therapy of the first session should be used for the baseline. Before and also after the comparisons are documented and joined a mean score is to be determined for each child participants by the set of both pre and post information of the session to note down any change in the progression of the participants – the observation of the change in body language will be assessed percentage of changes in any particular activity among the all will be quantified with the researcher’s own criteria using the Lickert scale. The researcher should collect the accurate data, and also an instructor should be present to moderate the process. Every child participant is to be given three opportunities to attain the goal. If they fail to achieve the goal the researcher should not document the tally marks (Wigram, 2000).
The materials are to be designed and developed by researcher herself to provide the lessons on music to the children and also hold a contract to give the services of music therapy to the students in the schools of the decided district. Recommendations are given to the students to take the music therapy from their teachers, and they will be evaluated by a certified and trained professional from Host Music Therapy. According to (Williams, Wheeler, Silove & Hazell, 2011) the music therapist must come on a weekly basis to have the sessions with the participants and on other days they will be assisted by their teachers. Researcher will bring some sorted and developed materials for the patients as per the requirement of the clustered by culture whereas video music will be the main attraction (Young, Camic & Tischler, 2015). However, the audio music will also be used as the instrument for making the patients’ audiometric as well as listening test of music during autism.
Conclusion
This study will examine the impacts of the music therapy as compared to the traditional methods of teaching, which mean without music based on the performance of the children with autism in reference to the focused skills in speech, sharing and turn taking and eye contact. The participants included five children with a specific analysis of autism who had the different range of communication in the skills of interaction and social skills. All the five students must attend this education class that is specially designed for them with the range of mild and reasonable disabilities. Every participant is to be observed pre intervention, post intervention and during the intervention throughout the sessions of music therapy (Reiersen & Handen, 2011). The data should be accurately collected to give accurate outcomes that will show the impacts of the music therapy sessions with autistic children.
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