My overriding memories of music lessons in school are of a teacher making us hold our breath and ‘deflate like a popped balloon’ every time we were about to sing. Needless to say, it wasn’t my favorite lesson of the day, but then I have never been very musically adept. Thankfully, the use of music therapy in treating Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) has a much more promising outcome.
Tomorrow is the fourth annual World Autism Awareness Day; a day on which Autism organizations around the world hold events for fundraising and to raise awareness of the condition, which affects an estimated half million people in the UK alone. Tying in nicely with this is work presented by Dr Dorita Berger of The Music Therapy Clinic, Norwalk, CT, USA who investigates the use of tempo-based music treatment to obtain ‘functionally adaptive’ behaviors in those suffering from Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). Due to erroneous sensory processing children with ASD often resort to behaviors such as repetitive pacing and evasive movements to cope with stress; essentially they are fear-driven responses.
“Music is a whole-brain event,” Berger explains. During 45 minute individual sessions, she engages participants in rhythmic clapping and drumming, and paced marching and recorder blowing, all with set tempos. “Music does not require semantic interpretation – meaning that with or without language abilities, music yields responses!” The responses do indeed seem promising as after eight weeks with six children on the autism spectrum, progress was noted over a number of areas including: redirection of repetitive behaviors, reduced anxiety and increased motor coordination. A heart rate vest worn by participants further suggested a level of entrainment and regulation was occurring. Inadvertently, Berger also noted a correlation between difficulty in controlling breathing when using the recorder and limited expressive speech ability.
Berger’s work, which has been recently presented at the New York Academy of Science’s ‘Music, Science & Medicine’ meeting, essentially shows the benefits of tempo-based music in organizing an otherwise disorganized system. It is a treatment that can not only be used to support occupational and speech therapies but holds its own benefits ”because it’s fun, [and] multi-sensory stimulating”, explains the scientist, who uses her blog The Music Effect to facilitate discussion with others interested in the field of study.
Moving forward, Berger is interested in the longevity of the treatment, and understanding how much and for how long the tempo-based treatment is needed for the improvements to become permanent. Berger concludes, “I have never met a person on the Spectrum that did not like, and enjoy music! It is a completely non-threatening treatment modality.”
I may just be a convert!
