Music has been the source of comfort and pleasure from centuries. Earlier, music’s benefits were known to have pain alleviating effects, but today, studies have shown that music helps to develop and improve cognitive abilities and remove emotional challenges as well.
Starting at the beginning of the 1950s and 1960s, therapists started studying the effects and benefits that music has on improving interaction and cognition in autistic patients. Numerous research studies have shown the immense benefits that music therapy has for children affected with autism. It has been seen that the interactive activities involving music had more effect on such children than activities that did not use music.
Music therapies are of varying kinds. For ASD (autism spectrum disorder), interactive musical activities are best-suited and show significant improvement in social and communication skills.
How does music therapy work?
Children affected by ASD have difficulty mainly communicating and interacting with peers or elders. Music therapy is an ideal channel that helps such children to improve their communication and interaction skills which are not developed to normal levels otherwise.
Music therapy basically gives an easier avenue to such children to communicate. Children can use singing, playing instruments, songwriting, listening to songs and music to make their communications skills better.
In turn, therapists use singing and music to teach the children to overcome their inhibitions and improve their interaction skills with other children or with their own parents. This can be done effectively by pairing certain musical cues with specific skills and actions. Later on, after sufficient training, the child can easily use their now-found skills without the need for the musical cues. The cues are gently phased out as the child progresses in learning the particular skills.
Music therapy is an excellent way to teach such children the value of taking turns and making eye contact, skills that are socially important but are lacking in them. Apart from the musical cues, the therapy also works by making songs that promote basic social and peer interaction skills, such as taking turns. The therapist can use songwriting as an effective method. The song’s lyrics are pleasant and easy to understand by the ASD-affected children which make these more effective. The child is able to retain the message of the song better than spoken instructions.
What is involved in Music Therapy for Autism?
In general, music therapy mainly involves four stages:
1. Assessment –
The therapist will assess the child to find out the specific symptoms of the condition. As music therapy is not a stand-alone treatment and mostly combined with other treatment therapies that help treat ASD (autism spectrum disorder), the music therapist will consult the child’s doctor and other therapists for essential and additional background information.
2 Setting Goals –
A customized and detailed program is scheduled according to the child’s individual requirements.
3. Activity Planning –
Music therapy sessions will include specifically designed activities that are suitable for the particular child. These include acting on musical cues, dancing to music, singing, and songwriting, playing musical instruments, listening to music, improvising and working effectively as part of a group of peers.
4. Evaluation –
Regular evaluations are planned to assess the progress of the individual child to ensure efficient development of their communication and interaction skills.
Various research studies have shown the considerable contribution that music therapy has towards the improvement of communications and interactive skills in children affected by ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder).
