Against the backdrop of special education's growing emphasis on individualized support, how to implement individualized instruction within specific subject-teaching contexts remains in need of in-depth investigation. Although research on music educati...
Against the backdrop of special education's growing emphasis on individualized support, how to implement individualized instruction within specific subject-teaching contexts remains in need of in-depth investigation. Although research on music education for children with autism has made some progress at the level of intervention outcomes, the systematic distillation of the operational mechanisms of the teaching process itself, as well as teachers' practical experience, remains insufficient. Accordingly, this study takes piano instruction as its point of entry and conducts a systematic examination centered on the individualized needs of children with autism during the learning process, teachers' instructional responses, and the pathways through which individualized teaching strategies are constructed and refined.
This study adopts a qualitative research paradigm. Semi-structured interviews with frontline piano teachers serve as the primary data source, supplemented by analysis of teaching materials. Thematic Analysis was employed to code the data, integrate categories, and distill themes. Proceeding from authentic classroom contexts, the study seeks to reconstruct the process through which individualized instruction is generated in concrete practice.
The findings are as follows. First, children with autism exhibit individualized needs in piano learning that are characterized by structural dependence and fluctuation in state, with their learning performance displaying marked situational and dynamic qualities. Second, teachers continually respond to children's individualized needs through such means as task decomposition, pacing regulation, and non-confrontational handling of interruptions; the teaching process is thus manifested as a dynamic adaptation grounded in situational judgment. Third, the construction of individualized piano teaching strategies is not a mere accumulation of fragmented methods but rather a systematic structure organized around the stability of classroom operation, and its refinement is reflected in teachers' shift from experience-based responding to anticipatory regulation.
This study provides a structured account of individualized piano instruction at the level of the teaching process, translating frontline teaching experience into an explanatory practical logic and addressing the tendency in existing research to privilege outcomes over process. The findings not only offer a contextually explanatory practical reference for the piano education of children with autism but also provide insights for the further development of individualized instruction within the field of special education.