A Whole New World: Music Therapy as an Intervention for Autism

Music therapist Dr. Deforia Lane once said, "Music has the power to move a person between different realities: from a broken body into a soaring spirit, from a broken heart into the connection of shared love, from death into the memory and movement of life." Since April is Autism Awareness Month, I decided to explore the positive effect of music on emotional health through the perspective of music therapy as an intervention for autistic patients who are incapable of effectively communicating and interacting with others. Finding ways to alleviate the symptoms of autism is a top priority among researchers because it is the fastest-growing developmental disability in the U.S., affecting one in 150 children; a child is diagnosed with this disorder every twenty minutes. Evidence shows that music serves as a unique channel of communication for autistic children who lack the ability to express their emotions through words or actions, but some patients must overcome special challenges when encountering music. According to Linda Brandenburg, the director of school autism services at Kennedy Krieger, "some students are sensitive to sirens and vacuums; some are sensitive to music, to specific instruments or the frequency of the instrument." Despite its limitations, this therapy has yielded positive results and educators across the nation are making music an integral part of programs for children with autism.

Richard Ashley, associate professor of music cognition, confirmed that “musicians demonstrate greater sensitivity to the nuances of emotion in speech.” Ashley’s latest study, which was published in the latest issue of the European Journal of Neuroscience, found that those with many years of musical experience are able to perceive and distinguish emotion in sounds after hearing them for only 50 milliseconds. Study participants were asked to watch a subtitled nature film that kept them distracted as they heard a 250-millisecond fragment of a distressed baby’s cry through earphones. Measurements indicated that musicians’ brains responded more quickly and accurately to sounds than those of non-musicians. Since the acoustic elements that musicians process more efficiently are the very same ones that children with language disorders, such as autism, have problems encoding, Strait (a doctoral student in the Henry and Leigh Bienen School of Music and a researcher in the Auditory Neuroscience Laboratory who worked with Ashley) suggested musical training as a method to enhance emotion perception in the autistic population. Strait's theory is important because an improved ability to feel and understand others' emotions ultimately leads to more effective communication between an autistic individual and the outside world.

Music therapy (pictured above) is defined as “the clinical and evidence-based use of music to accomplish individualized goals within a therapeutic relationship by a credentialed professional who has completed an approved music therapy program." It may include listening or creating music, playing instruments, moving to melodies, or singing. Treatment is based on the understanding that everyone has an innate responsiveness to music that transcends the physical, cognitive or emotional limitations of those who experience difficulties with affective perception/expression and communication. The therapist uses instruments or voice to "converse" with patients. This intervention enriches emotional perception by using different music genres to elicit experience of a wide range of feelings and stimulates more meaningful communication between participants and therapists because music-making involves many of the fundamental elements of social interaction, most notably self-awareness and the concept of “self in relation to another”. Increased self-awareness/self-other awareness enables participants to initiate more open social interactions in settings inside as well as outside the classroom. In a review of its effects for individuals with autism spectrum disorder, Gold, Wigram and Elefant concluded that this therapy may help clients improve their interpersonal skills. For example, improvising offers a creative means of expressing thoughts and feelings. It is non-judgmental, easily approached, and requires no previous musical training. Professionals believe that "where words fail or emotions are too hard to express, music can fill the void." Controlled research studies such as those by Edgerton and Aldridge, Gustorff and Neugebauer, confirmed that improvisation can increase the communicative behavior of children with autism.

The power of music entails emotional arousal and functions as a powerful form of communication. We value this form of art because of its ability to move us, to induce feelings and moods, and to alter our states of mind. Oliver Sacks, a clinical professor of neurology at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York wrote that "therapeutically, this power can be very striking in people with autism who may otherwise have little access to strong emotional states." Crucially, music therapy has the potential to alleviate autism symptoms by enhancing patients' emotive perception and subsequently widening their channel of communication with therapists, peers, and family members. It is hard to believe that a few touches on the piano or utterances from the mouth could have such a profound impact on one's well-being, but the efficacy of this intervention is supported by strong empirical evidence as well as personal accounts of its life-changing results. Simpson, mother of fifteen-year-old Janna who has a speech impairment, autism, and a seizure disorder, explains that ''latitude, longitude, looking through a microscope: Such skills are not important [... Janna] needs basic skills to live, such as brushing her teeth, taking a bath, the pragmatics of engaging with people. This is a difficult thing to teach.'' Fortunately, music therapy has served as a useful tool for many caring therapists and loving mother alike.