Music is a medium in which child can easily feel interested and pleasantly enjoy. This is probably because that music has effects of psychological purification and make possible interactive communications which are difficult to be provided merely by s...
Music is a medium in which child can easily feel interested and pleasantly enjoy. This is probably because that music has effects of psychological purification and make possible interactive communications which are difficult to be provided merely by speaking. Thus we might assume that such positive effects of music help autistic child overcome their maladjustive behaviors including emotional disturbance and sociality deficit.
The purpose of this study is to examine effects of musical activities on a mentally retarded, and autistic child's maladjustive behaviors including unusual shouting, diverting from their seats and talking to themselves. As the subject of the study, this researcher sampled a fifth grade students from a primary school located in Pusan who had been identified as an autistic child based on both the autistic diagnosis standards and autistic behaviors list DSM-IV(APA, 1994).
Musical activities applied in this study were from such programs as adapted suitably for autistic child's characteristics and needs provided under basic principles of music therapy provided by a Britain music therapist Elain Streeter
Findings from the study showed clearly that autistic child experienced both rapport formation and decrease in maladjustive behaviors by having physical contacts with the researcher via musical instruments. Those child became little distracted as they concentrated on musical activities. They also could have feelings of joy and accomplishment through musical plays, resulting in reduced maladjustive behaviors at classroom.
Autistic child are not different from ordinary ones in that they also have basic demands for someone's love and protection. More importantly, such demands could be supplementally fulfilled by the feeling of stability and free emotions from music itself and by accomplishments and confidence from musical activities.