The Relationship between Autism and the Multiple Intelligences Theory: Identifying Patterns in Learning for Educational Purposes

The Multiple Intelligences theory has been used to modify lessons in the traditional classroom for years. Incorporating this intelligence theory into lesson plans, teachers address students various learning abilities. However, this educational theory can also be used to improve students’ strengths in intelligence areas they are not proficient in. This is particularly beneficial for individuals with autism with social deficits due to their developmental disorder. Autism spectrum disorder can negatively impact various cognitive elements of an individual’s life, but it primarily affects an individual’s social skills and interpersonal intelligence. One of the most prominent solutions to improving social skills for students with autism is including them into general classroom environments with peers who are non-disabled. Though this can prove to be a challenge in the traditional classroom, the non-traditional classroom offers more opportunities for inclusion and success. Through the use of inclusion in environments such as the music classroom, students with autism are able to develop multiple intelligences at once, including interpersonal intelligence. Orff Shulwerk is a music education method that, after significant research, has shown to address all eight areas of intelligence at once. This method can reach out to students that excel in every intelligence category as well as benefit students with autism

The effect of background music on second-grade children's rhythmic and tonal pattern recognition

Thesis (D.M.A.)--Boston UniversityThe purpose of this study was to examine the effects of background music on second-grade students' rhythmic and tonal pattern recognition. As no locatable research has examined the effects of passive listening on the tonal and rhythmic pattern recognition skills of second-grade students, this investigation sought to answer the following research questions: 1) What is the extent ofthe relationship between exposure to repetitive background music and music pattern recognition scores among second-grade children; and 2) What is the extent ofthe relationship between musical preference and music pattern recognition scores among second-grade children? This study was conducted over a period of fourteen weeks. Sixty second-grade students comprised the sample used in this investigation. The participants were randomly assigned to one of two groups: the treatment group, which heard a continuous collection of classical background music every day for a total of sixty minutes per day, five days per week, and the control group, which received no treatment. The standardized test employed in this study was Edwin Gordon's Primary Measures ofMusic Audiation (PMMA), intended for children from kindergarten to grade 3. Additionally, a survey addressing the issue of preference was distributed at the end of the fourteen weeks to the students in the treatment group. All participants were administered the PMMA at the end ofthe fourteen-week testing period. The data gathered in this investigation were analyzed via a two-way Repeated Measures ANOVA. Analysis ofthe PMMA scores revealed statistically significant differences between the control group and the treatment group in the subset of participants with low-to-average music aptitude on the rhythm test. Statistically significant differences were also found between the composite percentile, rhythm raw and rhythm percentile scores of those participants in the treatment group who liked the music versus those who disliked the music. The significant results of this study include: a) those participants who possessed low-to-average music aptitude benefited from the background music program in the area ofrhythmic discriminatory skills; and b) those participants who liked the music performed better on the rhythm test of the PMMA than did those participants who disliked the music

The development of a teachers' pedagogical guidebook based on Dalcroze Eurhythmics for teaching multicultural music lessons in the elementary schools of South Korea

En Corée du sud, l'éducation musicale multiculturelle fait partie des programmes d'études de l'école primaire et les manuels scolaires comportent des répertoires d'exemples musicaux provenant de diverses régions du monde. Pourtant, malgré la place accordée à l'éducation multiculturelle dans les programmes scolaires, un certain nombre d'études ont soulevé la nécessité de méthodes d'enseignement favorisant chez l'élève une réelle compréhension de la musique en tant que culture. Ces recherches soulignent que les activités musicales proposées aux élèves doivent leur permettre de vivre des expériences musicales qui ne dissocient pas les musiques du monde de leur contexte culturel. Elles considèrent également que ces expériences musicales doivent être incarnées, vécues corporellement - à l'image des pratiques musicales du monde - et faire appel à la participation active de l'élève. La présente recherche, qui vise l'élaboration d'un guide pédagogique pour l'enseignement multiculturel de la musique dans les écoles primaires de la Corée du sud, s'appuie sur la rythmique Jaques-Dalcroze. Jaques-Dalcroze considère que le lien puissant qui existe entre la musique et les êtres humains est ancré dans la nature même du rythme qui est intrinsèquement lié au mouvement corporel. Cette approche pédagogique musicale, centrée sur l'expérience de l'élève et son interaction avec les autres, contribue à la découverte de soi et de l'autre; elle s'avère propice à l'appropriation de sa propre culture musicale et des diverses cultures musicales du monde. Le modèle de Van der Maren (2003), rattaché à la recherche de développement, nous a servi de cadre méthodologique pour l'élaboration et la conceptualisation de notre outil pédagogique. Le contenu de ce dernier a été déterminé en tenant compte des besoins du milieu scolaire et des recommandations découlant d'une recension de la littérature scientifique sur l'éducation musicale multiculturelle. Y sont abordés, les fondements théoriques du multiculturalisme et leurs applications pratiques en éducation musicale; les caractéristiques de la rythmique Jaques-Dalcroze et ses principes pédagogiques. Notre guide pédagogique, qui prend la forme d'un livre électronique E-book, présente une série d'activités et de stratégies pédagogiques illustrées par soixante-huit clips vidéographiques réalisés avec des élèves coréens de la première à la sixième année du primaire. Il a été testé par la chercheuse et évalué par trois enseignants de l'école primaire en Corée du sud. Les données générées par les essais in situ, les captations vidéographiques et les entretiens réalisés auprès des enseignants nous ont permis d'améliorer le contenu et la forme de notre prototype.Multicultural music education in Korea is part of national curricula, and diverse music repertoires from different regions of the world have been introduced in elementary music textbooks. Yet, a number of studies have raised the necessity of teaching methods that integrate cultural context through a variety of musical experiences and allow students to understand music as culture. These studies emphasize that actual, direct, and comprehensive musical experiences are essential for understanding music and its cultural characteristics, and that bodily experience is a significant part of such music practices. This study draws upon the powerful connection that Jaques-Dalcroze found between music and human beings in the spontaneous nature of rhythm and its relationship with body movement, which inspires students to discover themselves as well as others through exploring music and cultural context in the process of multicultural music learning. The goal of the present study was to create a pedagogical guide grounded in Dalcroze Eurhythmics for teachers incorporating multicultural education into their music lessons, particularly at elementary-school levels in Korea. Following a methodological approach specific to the development of pedagogical tools based on Van der Maren's (2003) model, the topics of the tool were determined according to the needs revealed through review of the existing multicultural music education research literature. Theoretical analyses linked to these topics were carefully selected from literature addressing the implications of multiculturalism and the fundamental purpose of multicultural music education, the characteristics of embodied teaching and learning approaches, and the pedagogical principles of Dalcroze Eurhythmics. A series of practical pedagogical activities and strategies, exemplified by video clips, was developed to support teachers. Following its elaboration, the prototype tool-a text e-book with 68 accompanying video clips-was tested and evaluated by the researcher and three Korean elementary-school music teachers. Evaluation data generated through in situ teaching, video-recordings, and semi-structured interviews were used to improve the prototype