Effectiveness of music therapy in the decrease of repetitive behaviors in people with autism spectrum disorders

En la actualidad, pocas discapacidades despiertan tanta preocupación e inquietud como los Trastornos del Espectro Autista. Este trastorno que hasta hace pocos años era conocido solo por las familias de los afectados y unos pocos profesionales, en la actualidad ha pasado a ser motivo de preocupación científica y social. El objetivo de este trabajo es examinar la eficacia de la musicoterapia con técnicas pasivas, mediante la audición de música clásica, con el fin de disminuir las conductas repetitivas que presentan este colectivo. Para ello, se realizó durante tres meses un estudio cuasi-experimental, con diseño pretest-postest, disponiendo de una muestra de 36 personas, de las cuales 20 formaron el grupo experimental y 16 el grupo control. Para la evaluación y selección de usuarios, se utilizó la Escala de Conductas Repetitivas (Repetitive Behavior Scale-Revised) y un registro de musicoterapia para cada sesión. Los resultados indicaron parámetros que muestran una leve mejoría en el postest respecto del pretest en el grupo de tratamiento y un incremento en todas las puntuaciones del registro de musicoterapia utilizado en cada sesión y cumplimentado por el equipo de atención directa del recurso de alojamiento y convivencia donde se realiza este estudio. Teniendo en cuenta el corto tiempo de la intervención y los resultados obtenidos, se puede plantear que se trata de una terapia efectiva a la hora de aliviar dichas conductas y aumentar su bienestar y calidad de vida. No obstante, es preciso realizar más estudios al respecto.Currently, few disabilities aroused so much concern and alarm as Autism Spectrum Disorders. This disorder, until a few years ago was known only by families of affected people and few professionals, has currently become a scientific and social concern. The aim of this study is to examine the efficacy of Music Therapy with passive techniques, by listening classical music, to reduce repetitive behaviors among this group. For it, it was conducted three months quasi-experimental study with a pretest-posttest control group design, featuring a sample of 36 participants, of which 20 formed the experimental group and 16 the control group. The evaluation and selection of users was by means of Repetitive Behavior Scale-Revised and a record of music therapy for each session filled out by the staff from the centers where this study was carried out. The results indicated a slight improvement on the posttest against the pretest scores in the treatment group and an increase in all scores from the register of music therapy used in each session. Considering the short time of intervention and the obtained findings, it can be assert that Music Therapy is an effective therapy to relieve these behaviors and increase well-being and quality of life in people with Autism. However, it is necessary to carry out further studies in this field

NEOTROPICAL CARNIVORES: a data set on carnivore distribution in the Neotropics

Mammalian carnivores are considered a key group in maintaining ecological health and can indicate potential ecological integrity in landscapes where they occur. Carnivores also hold high conservation value and their habitat requirements can guide management and conservation plans. The order Carnivora has 84 species from 8 families in the Neotropical region: Canidae; Felidae; Mephitidae; Mustelidae; Otariidae; Phocidae; Procyonidae; and Ursidae. Herein, we include published and unpublished data on native terrestrial Neotropical carnivores (Canidae; Felidae; Mephitidae; Mustelidae; Procyonidae; and Ursidae). NEOTROPICAL CARNIVORES is a publicly available data set that includes 99,605 data entries from 35,511 unique georeferenced coordinates. Detection/non-detection and quantitative data were obtained from 1818 to 2018 by researchers, governmental agencies, non-governmental organizations, and private consultants. Data were collected using several methods including camera trapping, museum collections, roadkill, line transect, and opportunistic records. Literature (peer-reviewed and grey literature) from Portuguese, Spanish and English were incorporated in this compilation. Most of the data set consists of detection data entries (n = 79,343; 79.7%) but also includes non-detection data (n = 20,262; 20.3%). Of those, 43.3% also include count data (n = 43,151). The information available in NEOTROPICAL CARNIVORES will contribute to macroecological, ecological, and conservation questions in multiple spatio-temporal perspectives. As carnivores play key roles in trophic interactions, a better understanding of their distribution and habitat requirements are essential to establish conservation management plans and safeguard the future ecological health of Neotropical ecosystems. Our data paper, combined with other large-scale data sets, has great potential to clarify species distribution and related ecological processes within the Neotropics. There are no copyright restrictions and no restriction for using data from this data paper, as long as the data paper is cited as the source of the information used. We also request that users inform us of how they intend to use the data