Promoting Communication for Young Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders: A Family-centered Music Therapy Intervention

Introduction. Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) are a continuum of traits that may negati-vely affect social and emotional competencies of individuals, including challenges in their engagement abilities, possible limitations in reciprocal interactions, and inflexibility in initia-ting and sustaining communication. Such challenges may affect language development and speech acquisition. Considering their importance, this study explored the impact of a family-centered, music therapy intervention to promote preverbal and verbal communication skills of young children with ASD during parent–child, music engagement episodes. Method. A mixed-methods design was implemented to gather data on the children’s prever-bal and verbal communication abilities (pre-and-post intervention data collection) and on each dyad’s musical interactions during a 16-week music therapy intervention. Quantitative out-come measures included children’s scores on the Pragmatics Profile of Everyday Communi-cation Skills (PPECS) and the Communication and Symbolic Behavior Scales Developmental Profile (CSBSDP), to assess children’s communication, expressive speech, and symbolic behavior over time. Qualitative data were gathered through semi-structured interviews, logs, and journaling. Results. Reports from the families corroborate with quantitative results regarding changes on the children’s communication abilities after the intervention. Discussion and Conclusion. Collectively, the current study provides evidence on the poten-tial of using music therapy interventions within a family-centered approach to enhance young children’s preverbal and verbal communication skills. © Universidad de Almería and Ilustre Colegio Oficial de la Psicología de Andalucía Oriental (Spain

Communication and Language Development of Young Children With Autism: A Review of Research in Music

Research demonstrates connections among children’s music actions, their engagement abilities, and their language development. Although the link between music and the engagement abilities of young children with autism is well established, there is not enough evidence on the effectiveness of music strategies and music therapy interventions to promote language development of young children with autism. The purpose of this review is to examine and analyze current literature on the systematic use of music and music therapy interventions as effective strategies for the development of language and preverbal and verbal communication abilities in young children with Autism Spectrum Disorders. Findings align with previous reviews on the positive effects of music as an age-appropriate, communicative medium. Also, the review pinpoints to the collaboration of music therapists and speech and language pathologists for the design and implementation of interventions that embed music and target language development of young children with autism. © 2017, © Hammill Institute on Disabilities 2017