Language and communication disorders are common to almost every autistic child and raise problems across many different scopes. The children with such disorders lack in expressive language compared to receptive language and have much difficult in expr...
Language and communication disorders are common to almost every autistic child and raise problems across many different scopes. The children with such disorders lack in expressive language compared to receptive language and have much difficult in expressing voluntarily according to situations. Thus this study set out to investigate the autistic children with certain speaking abilities and lacking skills of voluntary expression and to apply the method of making songs to help improve their voluntary verbal expressions.
The verbal expressions taught in a situation of music therapy would be extended to a nonmusical situation to see the changes to their verbal expressions.
The subjects were chosen from the children on the waiting list to receive music therapy at S Welfare Center for the Disabled in Seoul. The selection criteria included certain speaking abilities and basic learning skills needed to read and write to make songs. Using the Childhood Autism Rating Scale(CARS), the autistic children with mild symptoms whose scores ranged from 30 to 36 were first selected. Then the Preschool Receptive-Expressive Language Scale(PRES) was used to pick those who could command expressive language at the level of three to six year olds.
A session was given twice a week. Total 22 sessions were given and each session lasted 30 minutes. There were two stages; Stage 1 concerned knowing and expressing myself, while Stage 2 was comprised of activities of perceiving and expressing the surrounding environment. Consisting of total 12 sessions, Stage 1 contained six songs and encouraged the children to fill the missing lyrics with their own ideas and opinions. Consisting of ten sessions, Stage 2 employed creative children's songs to teach them total five songs and induce them to replace certain lyrics with their own ideas and opinions to the melodies.
The PRES was used to measure the children's overall improvement in language skills before and after music therapy. At each session the investigator checked the observation log for verbal responses to measure the performance rates of voluntary verbal expressions. Each activity was designed to repeat twice, and the performance rates of the latter one were measured. Employed to measure the voluntary performance rates of the children in a nonmusical environment was the inventory of voluntary verbal expressions developed by the investigator. With the help from the special education teachers at the children's institution, the inventory was used once a week for ten weeks. After an interval of a couple of weeks since the completion of musical therapy, another round of measurements was conducted to examine the retention of their voluntary verbal expressions.
The research findings were as follows: first, the music therapy using the method of making songs resulted in significant development and improvement in the children's expressive and receptive language. All of the three children were short of expressive language compared to receptive language, but there were apparent advancements after the music therapy. Subject A improved by seven months from 58-month level to 65-month level, Subject B by nine months, which was the biggest improvement, from 54-month level to 63-month level, and Subject C by eight months from 44-month level to 52-month level. Subject B, who had much interest in others and singing, accomplished the greatest improvement. And Subject C, who had much autistic tendency, improved in verbal expressions by as many as eight months, which was very significant.
Second, the results on the observation log for verbal responses in a situation of music therapy revealed that their voluntary performance rates in such a situation were higher than those in a general situation with no musical interventions. The voluntary performance rates increased by more than 20% in all of the three children including even Subject C whose autistic tendency was greater than the others.
Third, the verbal expressions taught in a situation of music therapy led to increase to the number of voluntary performance in a nonmusical environment, which was significant. That proves the voluntary verbal expressions encouraged and learned in a situation of music therapy can be generalized.
Given those results, it's apparent that the music therapy program using the method of making songs had treating effects on the children's improvement in voluntary verbal expressions. It's also implied that music therapy can serve as a useful treating means in improving, generalizing, and retaining the voluntary verbal expressions of autistic children.