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Autism is a life-long condition with no known cause or cure. Children with autism spectrum disorders have great difficulty understanding emotions and have difficulties relating to other people. But music has historically had great benefits, and a research team in UCLA is adding to the findings.

Autism was a term first coined by Leo Kanner in the 1940s. An interesting aspect of his seminal paper was the repeated mention of musical abilities and musical interest in over half his child test subjects. Since then, studies from pioneering practitioners have shown that autistic individuals may still process music in a way that is innate to all of us, and that this remaining instinctual nature can be used to build a relationship between therapist and client, and to heal aspects of the client’s cognitive, physical, neurological and emotional being. However because autism is a spectrum disorder, individual behaviour is very varied. This leads to uncertainty as to exactly what the cause of improvement is.

The latest development in music therapy is from Istvan Molnar-Szakacs and other researchers at UCLA (University of California Los Angeles), who have developed a music education programme designed to help autistic children better recognise emotion in themselves and others. 

The method used is known as the ‘Orff-Schulwerk’ approach, named after its inventor Carl Orff – best known for his Carmina Burana – who developed an intuitive approach to music learning. Instead of any formal theory or structure, it is based around singing, games, teamwork, beating a rhythm, chanting rhymes and dancing. Molnar-Szakacs builds on this by pairing emotional music excerpts with their relevant emotion (happy music with a happy emotion, angry music with an angry emotion etc).

Molnar-Szakacs says: "Music is a birthright of all children. To be able to listen and appreciate, sing or participate in music-making is as essential to development as mathematical or linguistic learning. The purpose of this work is to provide a means for awakening the potential in every child for being 'musical', that is, to be able to understand and use music and movement as forms of expression and, through that, to develop a recognition and understanding of emotions."

Molnar-Szakacs is positive about the benefits of the 12-week programme, adding: "Hopefully this will be a fun, engaging and cost-effective therapeutic intervention to help children with ASD recognize and understand emotions in daily life interactions. An improved ability to recognise social emotions will allow these children to form more meaningful social relationships and hopefully greatly improve their quality of life."

We know that an emotional bond is formed with sound well before we are born (12 weeks after conception), from hearing noise from the outside world to hearing the sound of blood rushing inside the womb. Music is a form of sound that can create very clear emotional pathways, open doors to understanding different social situations, and instantly help us anchor a mood in sonic terms. At The Sound Agency we’ll be interested to see the outcome of this. 

Sources and links:

Original Article:  (Released: 7/20/2009 2:20 PM EDT Source: University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), Health Sciences)University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), Health Sciences)

Jean Hwang, Washington Pos
The History of Autism
Music for Autism

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