The Effect of Music Therapy in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder The number of children affected with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) has continued to increase in the past decade (Reschke-Hernández, 2011). Researchers have been continuously searching for new treatment methods that will help improve certain disabilities in children that suffer from ASD. An emerging treatment is music therapy. Evidence has shown that music therapy is a valid option in improving social and communicative behaviors in children with ASD, however, the extent of its effectiveness leaves many researchers questioning if music therapy is a reliable form of treatment.
Music Therapy for Socialization Children with ASD lack the development of certain social skills, specifically, joint
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Children with ASD often use abnormal words when speaking, they routinely fail to respond when a question is asked, and frequently show disinterest and a lack of motivation to communicate. These are all examples of speech impairments that affect children with ASD. The most obvious impairments in language skills are “semantic, pragmatic, and prosody deficits” (Lim, 2010, pg. 2). Although these deficits are apparent, children who suffer from ASD are still able to understand speech as well as develop some form of functional speech. The perception of music has shown correlations to the perception of speech and language (Lim, 2010). Both music and speech share the same principles of understanding, which are pattern recognition and the organizing of information into different categories. These similarities lead to the belief that music therapy is an effective method of intervention to improve speech and language skills in children with ASD. In Lim’s (2010) study, she concluded that development in speech was more significant when using music training instead of speech