Music Therapy for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

This essay explores the effectiveness of music therapy in improving communication and social interaction skills of children with autism spectrum disorder. The research uses a case study and evidence-based research to support the findings. Music therapy is found to be superior to other forms of therapy and helps in improving vocalization, verbalization, and non-verbal communication skills.

Running head: HEALTH SCIENCE 1
Health Science
Name
Institution

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PART A
Clinical Question
Can music therapy help with communication and experiences of children with autism spectrum
disorder?
Introduction
Autism Spectrum Disorder can be described as a developmental disorder that in most cases
appears in the initial two years of life and affects the behavior and communication of a child. The
patient thus experiences difficulty in interacting and communicating with other individuals.
Additionally, they may experience behaviors that seem repetitive accompanied by restricted
interests (Lord, Cook, Leventhal&Amaral, 2013). Autism is a spectrum disorder because of the
wide disparity in the type and symptoms that patients from different parts of the world
experience. The disorders may include behavioral, social and communication challenges. Some
of the types of autism spectrum disorder include Asperger’s syndrome, autistic disorder, and
childhood disintegrative disorder among others (Lord et al., 2013). There is no clarity regarding
the causes and risk factors of autism spectrum disorder but scientists believe that genes and
environmental factors may influence the development of ASD.
A justification for the Clinical Question
An understanding of ASD is important for everyone to prevent the misinformation that is
perpetuated by people regarding individuals living with autism. This sought of misinformation
has in most cases led to a wrong judgment of the patients. Some people argue that autism only
affects children; others even say that people with this condition may lack empathy or all are

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geniuses. These arguments are, however, mere fallacies that may be unhelpful and upsetting to
the families of the patients with this condition.
These fallacies must not be perpetuated as they give the wrong information regarding the patients
who may be in need of therapies to help with their condition. The therapies may be behavioral
that may include applied behavioral analysis (ABA), verbal behavioral therapy, cognitive
behavioral therapy, relationship development intervention, developmental and individual
differences relationship, and social skills groups among others (Weitlauf et al., 2014). It is thus
important to ask the above clinical question as some of these therapies may not be as effective as
imagined. This is the reason why we are asking the following clinical question: Can music
therapy help with communication and experiences of children with autism spectrum disorder?
There are several reasons as to why the other mentioned therapies may not work and we will
discuss these reasons below.
Applied behavioral analysis has been widely used over the years to teach self-care,
communication, play, and skills in academics and social skills. It is also very useful in reducing
problematic behaviors. The therapist, in this case, observes the ability of the affected child and
defines what may most benefit the child. It may however not work due to a number of reasons as
discussed below (Matson et al., 2012). The time and cost of funding this kind of therapy may be
prohibitive. This is because the recommended duration is 40 hours per week which may not be
possible in some schools. Additionally, the cost of providing therapy for such duration may be
high and thus the children end up just receiving a portion of the recommended duration of time.
ABA may also be too tough on the children because it involves a lot of repetition plus the skills
learned do not essentially generalize to other situations. It is also believed that ABA lays more
emphasis on eliminating behavior rather than focusing on the development of skills of the

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children (Matson et al., 2012). It is also important to note that getting qualified therapists may be
a great challenge thus the patients with this condition not getting the help they need.
Verbal behavioral therapy teaches children who are non-vocal how to communicate
purposefully. Through this method, children learn how to get the desired responses by using
words functionally. One of the disadvantages however of this method, however, is the
availability of a qualified behavioral therapist (Reaven, Blakeley Smith, Culhane Shelburne &‐ ‐
Hepburn, 2012). Time is another shortcoming that may make this type of therapy difficult to
implement. The time required to modify a behavior and replace a negative behavior with a
positive behavior may be long when compared to the limited time allocated for the therapy.
Cognitive behavioral therapy is aimed at defining some of the factors that trigger particular
behaviors and as a result enabling the child to start recognizing those particular moments on
his/her own (Reaven et al., 2012). This type of therapy is may also be a challenge due to the time
and cost involved in implementing it.
Music should, therefore, be considered as a form of therapy to help in addressing the issues that
the other forms of therapy have failed to address. Music therapy may involve the use of physical,
mental, emotional, social, and spiritual facets of music to help the children with the autisms
condition in having improvements in their conditions.
In our research, we applied the PICO analysis to come up with the best research answer to our
clinical question. We used 10 different studies with a population of 165 participants who were
selected at random. Our research also examined both the medium and short-term implications of
the intervention of music therapy on children with ASD. The comparisons were the other types
of therapies as listed above. The outcome of the research was that music research may help

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children with ASD to improve their communication and social interaction skills. Below is an
advanced search on CINAHL.
Search Search Options Results
Search 10 Search 8 AND Search 5 AND
Search 2
123
Search 9 Search 3 OR Search 4 5,543
Search 8 Search 7 AND Search 6 543
Search 7 Placebo AND Control 312
Search 6 Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
OR Applied Behavioral
Analysis
231
Search 5 Music Therapy 2,578
Search 4 Verbal Behavioral Therapy 919
Search 3 Relationship Development
Intervention AND Music
Therapy
643
Search 2 Social Skills Groups OR
Placebo
3,321
Search 1 Developmental And
Individual Differences
675

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Relationship
PART B
The type of evidence used in this essay is a case study. This method of research involved a
detailed and in-depth analysis of the study in addition to all the necessary contextual conditions.
A formal research method was used to come up with the case studies that perfectly suited this
particular research work. The paper also incorporated a randomized control trial to come up with
different pieces of evidence. It is also important to note that we used Level 2 evidence in this
paper as the pieces of evidence presented showed an intention to solve the problems associated
with autism spectral disorder among children. The presented pieces of evidence were published
as recently as the year 2012.
The results of the research work are, as interpreted in the following paragraphs. Music therapy
can help with communication and experiences of children with ASD. This is because music
therapy applies musical relationships and experiences to enable individuals with this condition to
share their feelings, to relate with others and to communicate with others (Geretsegger, Elefant,
Mössler& Gold, 2014). Additionally, it uses the interaction between a parent or a teacher and the
child to teach some particular communication and social skills. It, therefore, addresses the main
problems of the people who have an autism spectrum disorder. An evidence search on this
clinical question is important to ascertain the importance of using music as a therapy in autism
spectrum disorder.
It is important to note that music therapy is a big contributing factor in developing the children’s
skills in social adaptation and thus improving the quality of the relationship between a parent and

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their child (Geretsegger et al., 2014). It gives children another way of interacting and
communicating with the use of a range of musical activities instead of words. These activities
may include songwriting, playing instruments, singing, and improvising among others. Musical
therapies are also used to teach new skills by pairing them with own musical cues. The children
will no longer be requiring the cues once they have learned and mastered the new skills. It may
also involve a therapist writing the lyrics of a certain behavior and singing them to the child
using the melody of a particular song the child likes (Geretsegger et al., 2014). This way, the
child gets to learn about the behavior and mastering it.
From our ten studies that included 165 participants, we were able to ascertain that music therapy
was far more superior to other forms of therapy that included applied behavioral analysis and
verbal, behavioral therapy among others. This was evidenced by the primary outcomes of the
social interactions that were analyzed under the said therapies. Some of the benefits of music
therapy that we were able to record included an increase in vocalization, verbalization, an
improvement in the self-care skills, a reduction in anxiety, and an increased in the right social
behavior among others. We also managed to ascertain that in all the ten studies that we carried
out, the patients were in most cases interested and responsive to music. This is bec9ause music is
very engaging and quite motivating and thus may be used to reinforce the desired responses.
It is, however, important to note that the small sample size of our studies was a limiting factor to
methodological strengths of our research findings. The duration of the therapy was also a slightly
limiting factor in the use of music in autism spectral disorder. In conclusion, however, we can
say that music therapy helps children in improving their social and communication skills in
addition to both verbal and non-verbal communication skills within the context of the therapy.

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From the three articles, we notice that according to Lord, Cook, Leventhal&Amaral (2013),
children with autism spectral disorder may experience behaviors that seem repetitive that may be
accompanied by restricted interests. These behaviors may, however, according to Weitlauf et al.,
(2014), be handled by the use of several therapies some of which may include applied behavioral
therapy, verbal behavioral therapy, and cognitive behavioral therapy among others. These results
are very conclusive because of the level of evidence used and the clarity of the outcomes. The
three pieces of evidence used in this paper imply that music therapy is fundamental in helping
children with autism spectral disorder. Music therapy, as highlighted from the three articles helps
in improving vocalization and verbalization thus improving speech and communication among
children with autism spectral disorder.
References
Geretsegger, M., Elefant, C., Mössler, K. A., & Gold, C. (2014).Music therapy for people with
autism spectrum disorder. Cochrane Database Syst Rev, 6(6), CD004381.
Lord, C., Cook, E. H., Leventhal, B. L., &Amaral, D. G. (2013). Autism spectrum
disorders. Autism: The Science of Mental Health, 28(2), 217.

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Matson, J. L., Turygin, N. C., Beighley, J., Rieske, R., Tureck, K., & Matson, M. L.
(2012).Applied behavior analysis in Autism Spectrum Disorders: Recent developments,
strengths, and pitfalls. Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders, 6(1), 144-150.
Reaven, J., Blakeley Smith, A., Culhane Shelburne, K., & Hepburn, S. (2012). Group cognitive‐ ‐
behavior therapy for children with high functioning autism spectrum disorders and‐
anxiety: A randomized trial. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 53(4), 410-
419.
Weitlauf, A. S., McPheeters, M. L., Peters, B., Sathe, N., Travis, R., Aiello, R., ...& Warren, Z.
(2014). Therapies for children with autism spectrum disorder.