Individuals With ASD - Music Therapy (2025)

08/12/2019

This article is important to to those who are interested in music therapy. It is not only important to parents but also professionals who perform music therapy interventions. Within the article, the authors include information about how professionals need stay up to date in order to provide the best care possible to individuals with ASD. It is important to stay up to date and be well trained because it is just as important to provide those with ASD the best type of care available and keep up with current trends.

The authors of, Music Therapy Services for Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Survey of Clinical Practices and Training Needs discuss how with the evolving changes in the ASD community, research about music therapy needs to keep up and possibly evolve with it. The authors mention how there needs to be standards regarding this type of therapy along with raising awareness. The reasoning behind creating standards is so there is more of concrete understanding of music therapy and how it should be handled. While it is hard to keep up with the changes, it is important to have some type of standard everyone is held to.

For the authors, they used professionals in the American Music Therapy Association who work with individuals with ASD to learn more. They sent out a questionnaire and discovered a lot. They realized that there is more demand for professionals who understand music therapy, the age range has become broader, and there are different areas where one could receive music therapy. It is also mentioned that they a line with other evidence-based practices.

While these professionals have a good understanding, there is still room for improvement. The authors argue that more training should be available to these professionals. The authors also mention that it is important for them to stay up to date on the rapidly changing information in the ASD community.

Kern, Petra, Rivera, R., N., Alie, Humpal, & Marcia. (2013, December 1). Music Therapy Services for Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Survey of Clinical Practices and Training Needs. Retrieved from https://academic.oup.com/jmt/article-abstract/50/4/274/970684.

AbstractBackground. Over the past decade, the definitions, diagnoses, prevalence rates, theories about the causes, evidence-based treatment options, and practi

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In this article, there is research that can be used to support how music therapy improves social interactions. Early intervention is used in this study, because the participants are only three years old. Since the participants are so young, there are some issues regarding if there could have been improvements on their communication and language development. This article is also useful in showing that by improving social interactions between a child with ASD and their parent(s), it will also help them with their social skills with the community.

The article Family-centred music therapy to promote social engagement in young children with severe autism spectrum disorder: a randomized controlled study looked into how social engagements between parents and their children can improve with music therapy. The authors mention how those with ASD typically have issues connecting to people socially, so by including music therapy they are trying to make that connection with the child and their parent(s). For their study, they used children ages 36 months to 60 months who were diagnosed with severe ASD. For this study, the relied on parental reports along with observations.

Through the study the authors were able to gather some information. Based solely on parent interviews, there was a strong increase in the child relationship with their parent(s). The authors believe that music therapy is able to improve how one interacts not only at home with their families, but also in the community. Since the study was performed on children so young, they did not see improvement in communication. It could be argued that if they included older children, they might have seen communication improvements.

Thompson, G. A., McFerran, K. S., & Gold, C. (2013, November 22). Family‐centred music therapy to promote social engagement in young children with severe autism spectrum disorder: a randomized controlled study. Retrieved from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/cch.12121.

Background Limited capacity for social engagement is a core feature of autism spectrum disorder (ASD), often evident early in the child's development. While these skills are difficult to train, ther...

08/12/2019

This article is also short, but helpful to those who are interested in music therapy. From this article, one will see information about how music therapy is good at improving communication, but needs more information to support whether or not it is helpful to those with behavioral issues. If there was more research being done, the authors would be able to include more specific information regarding both communication and behavioral improvement.

In the article, Music therapy for autistic spectrum disorder the authors are reviewing the effects of music therapy on individuals with ASD. The authors looked at several studies to see the impacts. The authors mentioned how there was improvements in communication but there were not significant changes to behavior. This article focused on clinical studies, which might have limited the amount of information gathered.

The also include a placebo therapy. While it is not listed to exactly why this is included, it was noted that music therapy had a greater impact on those involved in the studies. They also note several times how it was hard to note whether or not there was improvement on behavioral outcomes. Since these were limited in their data, more research on the authors part would be needed to strengthen the research outcomes. Overall the authors concluded that music therapy is especially helpful in improving communication.

Wigram, T., Elefant, C., & Christian Gold. (2006, April 19). Music therapy for autistic spectrum disorder - Gold, C - 2006: Cochrane Library. Retrieved from https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD004381.pub2/abstract.

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08/12/2019

This article, while short still includes valuable information regarding music therapy as a tool for those with ASD. This article mentions findings from different reports and what other researchers have gathered about it. It includes all of the areas that these individuals found improvement in, but does not include the research methods.

The article Music therapy in the assessment and treatment of autistic spectrum disorder: clinical application and research evidence the authors discuss how music therapy has been known to have positive impacts on children with ASD communicate better. The authors mention how there are several different types of music therapy that can be chosen from.

The authors of this article also focus on other people’s reports regarding music therapy. They mention that others study the effects of music therapy through either controlled studies or clinical case studies. They also mention that using music therapy as a type of assessment can help one discover limitations or weakness and strengths. It was also noted that even with a short exposure to music therapy, can still show great improvements for these individuals. Over different durations there were improvements in several different areas for these children including communication skills, language, emotional responses, and more.

Wigram, T., & Gold, C. (2006, August 9). Music therapy in the assessment and treatment of autistic spectrum disorder: clinical application and research evidence. Retrieved from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1365-2214.2006.00615.x.

Background Children and adolescents with autistic spectrum disorder (ASD) presenting with significant limitations in conventional forms of verbal and non‐verbal communication are found to respond po...

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The following article is important to those who are interested in music therapy as a treatment option for individuals with ASD because it lists the different areas that are improved. Through the article it focuses on school aged children and how music therapy impacted them in an 8 to 12 week program.

In the article Music improves social communication and auditory-motor connectivity in children with autism the authors focus on how music therapy can impact children with ASD. In the article, the authors compare music therapy treatments to non-musical interventions to improve communication skills and connectivity. For their research to take place, children with ASD were gathered ranging from 6 years old to 12 years old. The treatments/interventions would last 8 to 12 weeks. Before they began research an assessment was given to all of the children who participated so they could measure any growth.

The reason the authors wanted to conduct a study for how music therapy impacts those with ASD is because of previous research done by others. Many have found improvements in several different areas for these individuals including emotional engagement, social interaction, communication, and relationships between parents and children. Some also have noted an increase in musical ability. They also mention how music is not only beneficial to those with ASD, but how it also positively impacts those who are developing normally.

After the time span was up, the researchers did another assessment on the children to measure for growth. From their research, they saw cognitive growth in certain areas of the brain for those who underwent music therapy, but they also saw some declines in cognitive regions for those children in the areas of auditory and visual regions. They did see an improvement in communication for the children who participated in the music therapy as well.

While a lot of families want to try and cure Autism if they are being affected by it, it is more important to understand improving quality of life should be the main focus. By improving quality of life and functioning of individuals with ASD there can be an improvement on research in the future. From the research, it was supported that music therapy can improve a child both cognitively but socially as well.

Sharda, M., Tuerk, C., Chowdhury, R., Jamey, K., Foster, N., Custo-Blanch, M., … Hyde, K. (2018, October 23). Music improves social communication and auditory-motor connectivity in children with autism. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6199253/.

Music has been identified as a strength in people with Autism Spectrum Disorder; however, there is currently no neuroscientific evidence supporting its benefits. Given its universal appeal, intrinsic reward value and ability to modify brain and behaviour, ...

08/12/2019

The following article discuses how music therapy is an option for treatment for those with ASD. Through this article you are able to see how different areas for these individuals are affected by music therapy. It is also important to note through the research there was no evidence of negative affects to music therapy.

In the article Music Therapy for Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder: a Systematic Review the authors discuss their finds about how music therapy affected individuals with ASD. Within their investigation the authors had 147 participates of different ages ranging from 3 to 38 years old; in a majority of studies though the participants were 3 to 5 years old. The use of music therapy is to be a force of change that individuals with ASD and understand. With the increase number of individuals being diagnosed with Autism, there has also been an increase demand for music therapy. It is important to note the author’s strong emphasis on having a trained professional administer this type of therapy. Music therapy also contains a wide range of techniques which is why it is important to hire a professional.

From the research and data collected a majority of the participants had positive outcomes from the use of music therapy. There were a few cases where the individuals have mixed results from the music therapy. For each study used, there was a different type of design that went along with it. For instance, some used an ABAB design and others used visual cues. While it might seem hard to choose this type of treatment because of the amount of mixed outcomes, there were procedural limitations that could have affected those studies.

Through the studies, there were different focuses. Over half focused on social interactions and communication though. From their research, they were able to focus on improving language and promoting certain behaviors. It is important to mention that there are certain types of music therapy approaches mentioned; these being songs that target skills and the use of clinical improvisation. Overall, the research supports that music therapy has positive outcomes for those with ASD, but further research should be conducted.

James, R., Sigafoos, J., Green, V. A., Lancioni, G. E., O’Reilly, M. F., Lang, R., … Marschik, P. B. (2014, September 16). Music Therapy for Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder: a Systematic Review. Retrieved from https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40489-014-0035-4.

We identified, summarized, and appraised the certainty of evidence for 12 studies investigating the use of music therapy for individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The studies were...

Individuals With ASD - Music Therapy

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