Music emits vibrations and some practitioners use these vibrations as therapy. A new study investigated the effect of music vibrations on the challenging behaviors of persons with Autism Spectrum Disorders and Developmental Disabilities.

Lundqvist et al (2009) studied 10 persons with ASD and 10 with DD who had challenging behaviors before, during, and after receiving 20-minute music therapy treatment that involved vibroacoustics. Vibroacoustics were created using a chair with built-in loudspeakers that generated 30-80 Hz vibrations.

Behavioral analysis included behavior rating scales (completed by the participant’s assistant) and behavioral coding from video. Participants were randomly assigned to two groups, where the first group received vibroacoustic music treatment for 5 weeks (2xs per week), then the second group received the treatment the following 5 weeks (compared with no treatment) – basically a “waitlist” where the treatment was compared to no treatment.

Results indicated that self-injurious behaviors in persons with autism significantly decreased, according to the behavioral rating instrument (completed by the person’s assistant) and observational analysis. Furthermore, assistant rating scales revealed that the participants increased in their “sense of security” over the sessions. The authors conclude that vibroacoustical music “would be of benefit in the everyday life of individuals with challenging behaviors” (p. 399).

A few issues with the study:

Some of the information seems to be missing – for instance, I can’t find information on how they completed the behavioral observation analysis. I would like to know how many people analyzed the video and if there was inter-rater reliability. Otherwise this data could be one person’s opinion/subjective analysis.  Furthermore, this behavioral observation coding only occurred when they were in the treatment phase of the study – not when they were receiving no treatment.

Also, the waitlist “control” group didn’t participate in anything for 5 weeks. That raises the question as to if something is better than nothing. Does having something new yield different results?  For this reason, it is nice to see studies that compare the target treatment with another form of therapy or intervention. Comparisons with no treatment could lead to results that would have been obtained no matter the intervention.

Consider the “Sense of security” results – unless compared to any other situation where there is a novel environment/activity, how can you say that is related to treatment and not just related to “getting used” to the new environment? This could be the same with aggressive behaviors – they might decrease as the participants become more familiar with the environment.

Lastly, there was a small sample size.

Clinical implications:

I am going to have to disagree with the researcher’s conclusions and say that more research is needed to determine if this treatment is effective. At this point, I can’t really say that this study would inform music therapy practice due to the design and issues with the study. I would want to see more well-designed research on this topic before I used any of the information to inform clinical practice.

References:

Lundqvist, L., Andersson, G., & Viding, J. (2009). Effects of vibroacoustic music on challenging behaviors in individuals with Autism and developmental disabilities. Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders, 3(2), 390-400. doi:10.1016/j.rasd.2008.08.005.