Music therapy and children with autism: the effect of family centred music therapy on the social communication skills of young children with autism.

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Young children with autism vary greatly in their social and communication skills, from non-verbal and difficult to engage, to using sentences and showing some interest in other people. For those children who are non-verbal and difficult to engage, there is minimal evidence to determine which interventions will successfully foster the social and communication development of these young children. Music therapists are trained to use music (which is by nature a non-verbal medium) to motivate, evoke and elicit responses and interactions from children with social and communication impairments such as autism. While the use of music therapy with children who have social and communication impairments has been widely described, the evidence has primarily taken the form of case studies. Within the Early Childhood sector generally, there is increasing awareness of the importance of a strong parent-child relationship in the successful development of early social and communication skills in both typically developing children and children with autism. Interventions that involve the parent and support the parent-child relationship have reported significant gains in the social and communication skills of children with autism. This project aims to determine to what degree the early social and communication skills of children with autism aged between 3 and 5 years are effected by participating in music therapy sessions with their parent (primary carer).

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