Development of social interaction skills of autistic children’s by musical therapy

The Cochrane Collection of Randomized Clinical Trials (RCT) showed a favorable result of music therapy (MT) on individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). This study focuses on accessing whether MT can develop the social skills of autistic children. This quasi-experimental study was designed as a pre-test/ post-test and follow-up among the autistic children selected from Coimbatore city. Using childhood autism rating scale (CARS), 56 children with mild to severe autism were selected through convenience sampling and assigned into two groups: active and passive MT groups. Both the intervention group consisted of 26 children. Social skills of both groups were measured and recorded with the help of Triad Social Skill rating system scale. The children of the active intervention group participated in Orff–Schulwerk type of MT program for 3 months (three sessions of 35 minutes/week), whereas the control group received MT without any interaction. The groups were followed-up for 3 months. The data were analyzed with Statistic Package for Social Science (IBM- SPSS - 21) software using t-test and the groups were compared by analysis of covariance. The results of the MT intervention were mostly apparent in the following subscales - understanding/perspective-taking, initiating interactions, responding initiation and maintaining interactions with others. The post-test covariance analysis results of the intervention group showed a significant increase in social skills’ scores (P