Use of songs to promote independence in morning greeting routines for young children with autism

To begin with, this article made me look more closely at all of the transitions an autistic child faces each day in class. As educators focusing on a lesson plan, it is often easy to forget that a child may be struggling with these outside transition issues. I feel the study's idea of including music therapy based ideas into the classroom would drastically help an autistic child. In a way, these ideas would help to create a routine day for the child. In terms of participants, I feel that the study could have used a larger, more diverse participant grouping. Both participants were boys of similar age with mild to moderate cases of autism. The study involved an element of free play, which made me think of our pre-school music class. This free play was effective for our class, so I wonder if it will have the same effect in the study.

I found it interesting that two different songs were composed for the boys in the study. After looking over the scores (sent from a classmate), it is interesting to note the subtle differences, and how one's personality can affect music. The results of the study recommended the use of songs to help children with autism. I found it extremely interesting that the greeting song encouraged Ben's classmates to interact with him, and that Ben's performance did not change until his classmates began to interact with him. This shows the power and effect of music and more specifically, music therapy on Ben's classroom performance/experience. In turn, this will create a more positive classroom atmosphere for everyone involved. I feel that this study has interesting applications for my future use as a music educator.