Resources & references

When Benji was born, he was like any other child... at around eighteen months his speech development started to regress and his parents noticed changes in his behaviour.

Benji was diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder at the age of two and a half years old... and so the challenges for Benji and his family were now clear. Realising the long road ahead, Benji's parents were determined to give their son every opportunity for success in life. His music therapy journey begins here...  

This scoping review explores Bruscia’s (1987) clinical techniques for improvisational music therapy as they relate to music therapy in autism research to determine the most commonly used clinical techniques in music therapy with clients with autism. The work was undertaken as a preliminary step in a pilot study to explore how the techniques can be represented in terms of individual ways of playing, musical relationships; and how the use of the techniques impacts the participant’s experience of musical connection, influence, and expression

Concordia University produced the "Children's Right to Music" documentary.  The videos included in this documentary introduce music therapists interacting and using music with groups of children that are autistic or with some disabilities, in schools or community settings adapted to support their development and meet their needs.

The purpose of this two-part study was to confirm the relationship between dyadic drum playing and social skills and to further develop a rhythm-mediated music therapy intervention for improving the social skills of children with ASD. Participants showed greater engagement in joint action following the intervention. This study supports potential benefit of the rhythm-mediated intervention using dyadic drum playing and provides preliminary evidence strengthening its use in the social domain for individuals with ASD.

This article suggests a provisional paradigm shift from disability as pathology, to disability as neurodiversity: this has the potential to productively resituate the epistemological orientations of music therapy, both as a field of inquiry and a domain of practice. Drawing from their own work on the ethnomusicology of autism, as well as from research and writings in disability studies and autistic self-advocacy, they propose that the relativistic foundations of ethnomusicology offer a potentially useful alternative and complement to the principally treatment-directed foundations of music therapy.

This research examines the potential benefit of a music therapy social skills development program to improve social skills and academic performance of school-aged children with limited resources, in an afterschool program.
 

This article examines as a clinical report two years of an ongoing music therapy journey with a young woman with autism. The different phases of the music therapy process are investigated from a relational point of view, explaining the therapeutic choices made by the therapist. including the application of theory of "Forms of vitality".

This mixed-methods pilot study investigated whether nine Neurologic Music Therapy (NMT)® sessions via telehealth would improve motor and attention skills in autistic children. The improvements in motor skills and positive caregiver and therapist views of telehealth indicate that NMT motor interventions administered via telehealth are a promising avenue of therapeutic support for movement skill development in autistic children.

 The central impairments of people with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) affect social interaction and communication. Music therapy uses musical experiences and the relationships that develop through them to enable communication and expression, thus attempting to address some of the core problems of people with ASD. The present version of this review on music therapy for ASD is an update of the original Cochrane review published in 2006. The findings of this updated review provide evidence that music therapy may help children with ASD to improve their skills in social interaction, verbal communication, initiating behaviour, and social-emotional reciprocity. Music therapy may also help to enhance non-verbal communication skills within the therapy context. Furthermore, in secondary outcome areas, music therapy may contribute to increasing social adaptation skills in children with ASD and to promoting the quality of parent-child relationships.

This book describes well-defined models of music therapy for working with families in different clinical areas, ranging from families with special needs children or dying family members through to families in psychiatric or paediatric hospital settings. International contributors discuss their specific approaches and share case studies. Particular emphasis is placed on connecting theory and clinical practice and on discussing the challenges and relevance of each model.

 This article introduces an adaptation of the music therapy and autism specific AQR-instrument. The author developed this adaptation following the requirement to report on the outcomes of his work at a school for children with autism. After introducing the AQR-instrument, the author describes how his adaptation enables him to produce bar charts illustrating client progress. 

Music as therapy for autism spectrum disorder (ASD) has traditionally focused on social interaction, communication skills, and social-emotional behaviors. However, recently, there has been an increased research focus on the role of motor and attention functions as part of the hallmark features of ASD, which may have significant implications for the role of music as an intervention for individuals with autism. The purpose of this article is to provide a critical appraisal of new research developments for therapists and researchers to potentially reassess the role of music and expand the current clinical scope of practice in music therapy for autism. Our argument is based upon compelling research evidence indicating that motor and attention deficits are deeply implicated in the healthy neurodevelopment of socio-communication skills and may be key indicators of structural and functional brain dysfunction in ASD.