Communication is considered a major need for children with ASD. Music may be beneficial to eliciting speech communication and more research has been focused on this area in recent years (see post on Wan et al., 2011).
Sandiford and colleagues (2012) sought to determine if a “melodic based” communication intervention would elicit speech in nonverbal children with ASD. They compared the melodic intervention to traditional speech therapy services.
Twelve children ages 5 – 7 were randomly assigned to one of the two groups. Interestingly, the music group progressed most in verbal attempts in weeks 1-4, demonstrated significantly more words in the home, and showed more attempts at imitation. The traditional speech group progressed most after weeks 4-5. Both groups made significant progress after the treatment period.
The melodic-based communication therapy was developed by the author and uses a “standard” melody for each target word. The words are pre-recorded on a CD and the child is led to clap while saying the words. The standardized melodies are not notated in the study; however, the word list and protocols are included. The researchers all appear to be speech therapists.
While I think the study of music in communication for children is needed, more information about how the standard melodies were developed would be useful in evaluating this study. Furthermore, clapping was only used in the melodic group. Studies such as Stahl et al. (2013) have demonstrated that patients with aphasia engaged with rhythm improve speech similarly to patients using melodic phrases, making this a consideration for further investigation.
Side note for those interested in research methods… I have been reading a lot about pilot studies in the last month. The above study was labeled as a “pilot” study, which is defined as “A small-scale test of the methods and procedures to be used on a larger scale…” (Porta, 2008). The purpose of a pilot is to determine if the study procedures and methods are sound before a larger study is attempted. A pilot should not be focused on hypothesis testing (Leon et al., 2011), since small sample sizes are considered a improper use of inferential statistics. This is important to keep in mind when reading pilot studies, as their results and discussion should focus on the workings of the study, not a statistical analysis of outcomes. See Robb (2013) editorial for more on the pilot study as it relates to music therapy.
References:
Leon, A. C., Davis, L. L., & Kraemer, H. C. (2011). The role and interpretation of pilot studies in clinical research. Journal of Psychiatric Research, 45(5), 626-629.
Robb, S. L. (2013). The power of the pilot. [Editorial Material]. Journal of Music Therapy, 50(1), 3-5.
Sandiford, G. A., Mainess, K. J., & Daher, N. S. (2013). A pilot study on the efficacy of melodic based communication therapy for eliciting speech in nonverbal children with autism. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 43(6), 1298-1307. PMID: 23065117
Stahl, B., Henseler, I., Turner, R., Geyer, S., & Kotz, S. A. (2013). How to engage the right brain hemisphere in aphasics without even singing: evidence for two paths of speech recovery. Front Hum Neurosci, 7, 35. PMID: 23450277
Wan, C.Y., Bazen, L., Baars, R., Libenson, A., Zipse, L., et al. (2011) Auditory-Motor Mapping Training as an intervention to facilitate speech output in non-verbal children with autism: A proof of concept study. PLoS ONE 6(9): e25505. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0025505
Check out our online continuing ed courses! Learn while supporting music therapy research.