Essay Extract - Social Interaction of Autism
Chapter 2 – Literature Review
Literature related to Social Interaction of Autism
Most of these researches are talked about the social interaction is a communication performance of people to interact with the outside world. Everyone should need interaction to enlarge his or her social area. Without this, people may become alone. Moreover, Social interaction can show the importance on how people communicate with others. In the social community setting, social interaction is the way to show how people form the relationship with other people. According to Bailenson et al. (2004), Social scientists may realize that social interaction involves the communication of both verbal and nonverbal signals. For the.verbal signals, it includes spoken, written, and signed language. While the nonverbal signals includes gaze, gestures and postures, facial expression, touch, etc. It showed that social interaction is a kind of communication of people to interact with others or outside world. Social interaction may occur in our everyday life through different situation, such as in school, workplace, etc.
Compared with the autism, the development of the relationship with others is a great challenge of them. Based on the abnormalities of social area in the brain, it may affect the social interaction and commnunication (Chung, Dalton, Alexander & Davidson , 2004; McAlonan et al., 2005). Therefore, the autistic children have a problem or difficulties on this area, as they failed to develop age-appropriate relationship (LeGoff, 2004). It is a common symptom on the autism. The autisitic children prefer to be alone, have a constant environment and limited language skills. They have a deficit on the verbal and nonverbal communication and social interaction, also associates with restricted and repetitive patterns of behavior (Reschmidt, 2001). It is the main problem or difficulties for the autistic people to adapt in the outside worlds. In addition, Kronenberger & Meyer (2001) indicated that the impaired social interaction on autism which included “poor or absent eye contact, failure to orient to a speaker, discount with physical touching, lack of social interaction, refusal to follow rules, lack of imitation and empathy (p.385)”. Moreover, the impaired of social interaction is directly affect their daily life and an appropriate treatments or interventions are minimize their impairment in order to adjust in society.
McConnell (2002) summarized the researches of the facilitation on the social interaction of the autistic children. The purpose of this paper is shown the characteristics of social interaction and social relationship of the young autistic children. The research result pointed that autistic children have a relatively lower score on developing peer relationship and the deficit may affect their social skill. They may spend relatively less time or long distance with other peers, and use a lot of time in some meaningless things. Epp (2008) indicated that the characteristic of the autism is difficult to identity as there do not know the exact mechanism of social interaction skills. However, compare with all the previous researches, these children are difficult to develop their conversational skill, and facial expression, eye contact are under restriction. From this research, the researchers mentioned that autistic people have a high chance to suffer from anxiety and commit suicide. It is because they are live in their own world and have poor social interaction. They don not know how to interact or manage interpersonal relationship with other people. From the above research findings, we can summarize the impairment of social interaction may directly affect the autistic children communicate to the outside world. It is their physical limitation indeed. This can give people a basis concept of the impairment of autism, as people are misunderstanding that they are a strange person. In addition, social interaction is an important element of people to communicate with the outside world. It is necessary to help to improve their interaction skill and adapt to the society.
Literature related to Music Therapy and the Autism
In the recent decades, music therapy becomes one of the interventions to help the people whose have psychological problem in Hong Kong (reference). Music is a universe and similar as an emotional expression, it can help people to express their feeling and emotional. Collins and Wilkinson (2006) stated that music is a form of communication that can change peoples’ thought, feeling and behavior. It enables peoples’ self-expression, reflection and emotional development. In addition, its combine with different cultures in order to make people have a deep understanding about themselves or others. Therefore, music is commonly use in school, home, different countries in the world. In music therapy, through different kind of musical instrustments, such as, singing songs, listenting music, etc, the clients may address the emotion, physical, cognitive, psychological and social need for individuals in order to express their feelings (American Music Therapy Association [AMAT], 1999). It is a comprehensive way to help people release their psychological problem. Besides, it can also improve people social interaction and communication with others.
Music therapy recognizes as one of the treatments on the autistic children. The music therapists used music to promote relationship building (Allgood, 2005), language or communication, behavior or psychosocial, cognitive, and perceptual or motor areas (Kaplan & Steele, 2005). Whipple (2004) had a meta-analysis to talk about the music intervention for autistic children. Researcher summarized 10 studies of using music therapy on autistic children. The result showed a positive direction, and benefit on using music as a treatment on autism. The benefit may included increased an appropriate social behavior, attention on task, gesture, interaction, communication with others. It is an on-going assessment to see the improvement on this intervention. Compared with 10 studied in this meta-analysis, the most important things is to show the effectiveness on using music therapy on the autistic children. It has a potential benefit and contribution on the autism. Further researches are needed to see the on-going or long-term performance on autistic children using music therapy as their treatment.
Autism has their restriction of social interaction and communication area. It is a long-term process on using music therapy to enhance their impairment. Kaplan and Steele (2005) investigated the 2 years music program on the 40 autistic people with the age of 2 to 49. They want to know which session type, and format most people used. The result pointed that the most common session type was individual 80%, compare with partner, combination, large group, small group and peer model. Most of the clients achieved the communication goal under the activity-based. In the individual session, clients liked to have a series of music activities (e.g. instrument playing, interactive singing, musical instrument instruction) to improve their interactive or communication skills. The activities behind is base on their impairment or deficit on social area. All these finding can give parents or professionals to generalize music intervention at home, school or health care center in the society. The limitations of this study as it can not provide a detail explanation on the result finding, and parents or caregiver perception of music intervention may influence the result. The further researches may need to examine the prevalence and effectiveness on music therapy on autism, and replicate the study in school setting with those children whose diagnoses as autism.
Ropp, Caldwell, Dixon, Angell and Vogt (2006) indicated that Autism had perceived the high percentage of efficacy on using music therapy as treatment in the special education program. The result pointed that the percentage of the efficacy in autism contained 82.3% compare with behavior disorder 67.1%, emotional disturbance 75.9%, learning disabilities 45.6%, mental retardation 59.5%, etc. The effective of using music therapy in special education program is because “specific music therapy interventions promote wellness, stress management, reduction and alleviation of pain, improve communication and physical rehabilitees” (p.87). Therefore, it showed that it is good for using music therapy on the people who have special needs. The techniques uses on music therapy that include singing, music listening, instrument playing, song writing and composition. Through these activities, children can enhance their interaction between children and their families. In this study, some factors may need to consider in the future research, such as the number of the professional respondents to generalize a nationwide finding; parents play the important role in the special educational program. Furthermore, special education program and autistic children have a positive attitude towards music therapy.
Walworth (2007) indicated the on-going assessment by using SCERTS model to assess the music therapy for autistic children. “The purpose of the SCERTS model is to enhance the communication and socio-emotional functioning of children with ASD and improve family interactions and support” (p.3). It contained social communication, emotional regulation, and transactional support. Through the survey, music therapists may ask what treatment goal, technique, intervention setting on the autistic children. The result stated that most children had such improvement on eye contact, verbalization, or interaction skills after the music sessions. Most techniques use on music therapists are teaching general music, instruments, or singing songs, etc. From the above researches, it can show the effectiveness on using music therapy in autism or children with special needs in the special education setting. Music can be easy to apply in home, school or health center. Some researches (Kerm & Aldridge, 2006; Wigram & Gold, 2005) may find that autistic children have a positive attitude toward music. In order to maximize all the benefit, music therapy is an effective way to enhance interaction or communication to the autism.
Literature related to the improvement of social interaction of autism in music therapy
In recent decade, many researchers start to investigate the effectiveness of using music intervention on the autistic children. The results are satisfy to show that it has potential benefits and bring improvement on communication and social interaction on autism through the intervention of music (Kerm & Aldridge, 2006; Kaplan & Steele, 2005; Whipple, 2004). As autism has a deficit or impairment on the verbal and non-verbal communication, music therapy can be a possible treatment to improve on these areas. It is because music also is a mean of communication, it involve emotional expressional, reflection, and dynamics. All these elements are not only for the music instruments performance, it also reflect peoples’ emotional and psychological level. According to Wigram and Gold (2005), they stated that the clinical application on the music therapy on the autism. The result showed that music therapy could facilitate peoples’ motivation, communication skills, and social interaction and improve attention on autism. The structure of music promotes the reciprocal interaction and engagement in order to build up the interpersonal relationship with others.
Shore (2003) used the several case studies to talk about how music therapy improves social interaction and communication on the autistic children. all these autistic children are non-verbal and low functioning. In the intervention process, different kinds of materials could be used, such as using music instruments, motor activities, letter completion, and singing songs. For the letter completion, therapists might give the children a piece of paper. The paper contained a letter name on the notes and asked them to put the letter name on the appropriate place with some hints on it. Imitative on playing musical instrument could also improve their attention and turn taking by follow the beat from the therapists in a group. Through different sessions, the therapists want to improve their attention, turn talking and fine motor skills. After a several sessions, most of them had an improvement and started to interaction with others. Researcher summarized that music is an effective communication for people are nonverbal. The most important thing is children can improve their self-esteem through the letter completion in the music session as the autistic children can use their direction or thinking to complete the task. Moreover, playing or intimating musical instrument can enhance their social interaction in school and community.
Allgood (2005) had the investigation of the family –based group of music therapy on the autistic children. Before the sessions, parents need to attend the pre-and post session with the music therapy to talk about the treatment process and expectation. Then, the weekly sessions followed a structure of greeting songs, specific music activities, a goodbye songs, and free exploration time. The intervention need to promote joint attention, interaction among group members, self-expression and cooperative group experience. Mothers, fathers or siblings were welcome to attend in the 7-week intervention. The result showed that the autistic children demonstrated the increase in their participation in intervention and risked playing instruments longer, vocalizing more, and being in physical contact with others. Under the families support, children may think that their parents are take care or concern of them. Family involvement can give them encouragement on the treatment in order to build up a desirable outcome. The most important thing is the autistic children start to interact with other peers throughout the whole progress.
Another previous study of Kerm & Aldridge (2006), the researchers said that that playground time is important for the learning and social development of preschool children, especially, the autistic children in the community-based inclusive childcare program. In this study, the researchers combined the music therapy, modeling techniques and play therapy to improve their social interaction on autistic children. For the autistic children, the outdoor play is the major challenge on them. Under these difficulties on them, the researchers used the music therapy technique to improve their communication and interaction skills as well as to enjoy the meaningful play with others. They had a several settings and materials use in this intervention. For example, each child had their own songs composed by the music centre and there had sandboxes, wooden playhouse, beds, and toys in the music playground. In each session, the target children had some peers to play with them in the musical playground. They hoped the target children can play with at least one peer, initiating play, singing their unique songs and playing the instruments, and then modeling the lyric of the songs in the circle time. The result showed that the target children could build up the four steps of interaction skill with peer: (1) choosing the instruments; (2) naming peers; (3) waiting for turns; (4) making appropriate body contacts. Each target children produced desirable outcome in the whole intervention. Throughout the whole process, the music program can enhance the motivation for the autistic children to interact with peer during the playtime. Furthermore, music therapy can be recommended to use by teachers in schools. Definitely, this study is an on-going assessment to investigate the long –term performance on the interaction of autistic children. The professional training is need for teachers to build up the knowledge, professional, and ethical techniques to the clients.
Summary
The impairment or deficits of the autism bring a great challenge to interact or communicate in the society. There are no exact ways to treat on this impairment. The most important thing is to build up their social interaction or communication skill in order to make them adjust in the society. Music therapy is a trend to use on the autistic people nowadays. From the above researches, some may indicated that the use of music therapy on autism could bring a desirable outcome on the social interaction. It is because music is a mean of communication, and it gives people enjoyment or pleases (Collins & Wikinson, 2006). Therefore, everyone is suitable to use it in order to express personal or emotional feeling. Moreover, researcher (Walworth, 2006) may state that this study is an on-going assessment under the autistic restrictions. For the above studies, we have a key concept that music therapy is an effective intervention to improve social interaction on the autistic people. Further research is needed to investigate how to be more effective use on music therapy, what techniques can be use or any therapies can be combining with on the autistic people.
The purpose of present study is to know how effective of music intervention is on the autistic children to improve their social interaction with peers in this secondary school in Hong Kong. Specifically, the study addressed the following research questions: (1) Would the autistic children improve their social interaction with peers in school through the music intervention? (2)Does it have any difference on the interest of music on subjects affect the result?
