The Effect of Music Therapy and Peer-Mediated Interventions on Social-Communicative Responses of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of music therapy on social-communicative behaviors (eye contact, vocalization/verbalization, and gesture imitation) of children with autism spectrum disorders. The target participants were two children with a tentative diagnosis or a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorders along with three typically developing children. ABAB reversal design was used to investigate the difference in the social-communicative behaviors between baseline (A) and music therapy intervention (B). The frequency of social-communicative behaviors of eye contact, vocalization/verbalization, and gestural imitation were reported through graphic analysis. In each condition, one or two typically developing children modeled the social-communicative behaviors for their peers with autism spectrum disorders. Results from the two participants indicated that the use of either intervention (non music or music) could increase one of the social-communicative behaviors in children with autism spectrum disorders, gestural imitation. As for vocalization/verbalization, the two target participants demonstrated this behavior more during the non-music condition than during the music condition. Eye contact results indicated that there was no different between the non-music and the music conditions.