A new Cochrane Review is available on the topic of music therapy for individuals with Autism!This review, conducted by Geretsegger et al., (2014) looked at all RCTs that compared music therapy to no treatment, standard care, or another form of treatment. The authors identified 10 studies that included a total of 165 participants. Music Therapy was superior for skills including social interaction, verbal communication, non-verbal communication skills within the therapy context, initiating behavior, and social-emotional reciprocity. There were no differences found for non-verbal communication outside of the therapeutic context.

The conclusion of this study supported that music therapy may help children with ASD to improve social skills, communication skills, initiating behavior, and social-emotinoa reciprocity. The authors also state that more research using larger sample sizes and generalized outcomes measures is needed.

This is precisely what we would like to do (we being LaGasse and research team)- build music therapy and ASD research! In order to do this we are asking for your support. We are running a short campaign to purchase equipment that will be used for a line of research. Any amount of support will help us to meet our goal, which will allow us to begin conducting studies on the impact of music therapy for individuals with ASD. This campaign is only open for a short time, so please act fast! – Support now here!

Reference:

Geretsegger M, Elefant C, Mössler KA, Gold C. (2014). Music therapy for people with autism spectrum disorder. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 17;6:CD004381. doi: 10.1002/14651858.CD004381.pub3. PMID: 24936966