• Journal of Music and Human Behavior
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.53-67
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• 2012

Improvisational music therapy is known to promote social engagement in children with autism. This study investigated salient features that characterize the engagement of the child with autism and the therapist in improvisational music therapy. Through video analysis of the children's behavior, this study sets out to investigate what engages children with autism into mutual play with the therapist in improvisational music therapy by measuring the shared musical elements between the child and the therapist during musical synchronicity episodes and the children's choice of instruments. A repeated measures, a crossover design was employed in two different conditions (n = 10). Children were randomly assigned into two groups; group 1 participated music therapy first, followed by play therapy second. Group 2 followed the reverse order. Specific target behaviors were analyzed in the selected sessions 1, 4, 8 and 12. As expected, improvisational music therapy produced markedly more and longer events of musical synchronicity in children with autism than the play sessions with toys (p < .001). Rhythm and dynamic appeared to be the two most salient elements during musical synchronicity events between the child and the therapist. Observational findings confirmed that horns and whistles were the most frequently selected instruments in music therapy, whereas a dollhouse set was in play therapy by children with autism. The clinical implications and the details of these findings are discussed further.