Teaching music to autistic children – a brief overview

- WHAT IS AUTISM?

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) - broad range of complex neurobehavioral

conditions characterized by challenges in social interaction, verbal and nonverbal communication
and by having repetitive behaviors

- WHY TO KNOW

- My own student
- Increasing number of children with Autism - by improved diagnosis and awareness - 1 in
88
- the population of students with autism entering regular music classrooms is growing
- people looking for music therapy and music lessons to help - growing

- CHARACTERISTICS

- Many subtypes - each person with autism can have unique strengths and challenges

Communication
- Delayed language development – unable to combine words, difficult in sustaining conversation,
lots of monologue – literal understanding of all (hard to interpret sarcasm, for example)
- Some remain mute/some learn to use other communications systems as pictures or sign language
- Difficulty understanding questions and directions
- Repeating of words/phrases (back and unrelated phrases)
- Hard to understand what they need (as a result – they may scream or grab what they want)
- Limited eye contact

Social Skills
- Prefer being alone
- Difficulty building relationships - Difficulty understanding others people’s feelings
- Difficulties in decoding facial expression and gestures

Sensory Processing Issues

- Can be hypo or hyper-sensitive to sensory stimuli - Be under- or over-reactive to
sensory stimuli - difficulties in processing and integrating sensory information
- Unusual and intense reactions to sounds, smells, tastes, textures, lights and colors –
some things can really disturb them

Motor skills
- motor challenges - with muscle tone, coordination
- Repetitive behaviors (flapping arms/rocking/spinning/walking on their toes/freeze in position)
 OTHERS
- Resistance to minor changes in routine or surroundings - a slight change in any routines
mealtimes, dressing, taking a bath, going to school by the same route – can be extremely disturbing
– order and sameness give some stability in their world)
- Difficulty making transitions from one situation to another
- Delays in academic achievement
- Focusing or sustaining attention can be difficult
- Restricted interests – but in subjects that they are interested or that motivate them – can maintain
considerable intensity

Intellect
- many have average/above intellectual skills
- many have significant disability – unable to live independently
- some have exceptional abilities - strong visual skills / good memory or details/ long-term memory
/ computer and technology sills / musical ability or interest / intense concentraion or focus on a
preferred activity / artist ability / mathematical ability - we can’t assume that they have, but once
aware that a student has a skill create an opportunity to form a connection, to motivate- to use
that strength in overcoming other areas of deficit

BENEFITS OF LEARNING MUSIC FOR AUTISTICS

- songs and other activities can help develop speech and vocal skills,
- increase attention span
- provide a valuable means of self-expression / nonverbally communication
- develop more social behavior – when working with groups and ensembles, passing and sharing
instruments, music and movement games, grows interaction - If we look closely at the way that a band
works, it is obvious that the instruments must all interact with one another, but the player only
needs to interact with the instrument at first. For children dealing with autism, interacting with
others can be difficult, but through introducing an instrument to their therapy, they may bond first
with the object and then open up to others interacting with their instruments as well.
- motor/coordination skills – playing in instrument
- reducing anxiety
- Melodic and rhythmic patterns give students with autism a way to organize auditory information
and help memorize scripts, task sequences, and academic facts.

GOOD TO KNOW
Individuals with autism show equal or superior abilities in pitch processing, memorization of
melodies, and labeling of emotions in music.
Absolut hearing – playing by ear

STRATEGIES TO TEACH MUSIC TO THEM

EACH STUDENT WITH AUTISM IS UNIQUE

 - Find out how your student learns. (Are they an aural learner? Visual? Tactile/kinesthetic?) Find
ways to adjust your teaching style to his/her learning style (maybe the student needs a daily or
weekly list of learning activities/music class procedures to establish a “routine”).
- Establish clear routines and habits – stick to a certain lesson structure - - Avoid changing lessons
to a diferente day of the week or day time
- Alert the student to changes in advance - preparing him for transitions in between activities with
- Simple directions – step-by-step structure - avoid abstract comments such as ‘save your breathe’
or ‘shake a leg’ because students with autism are literal thinkers and those types of comments are
very confusing for them
- wait-time for processing verbal requests or directions
- be aware of sensory issues in the class (echoing rooms ,loud, fast activity) - volume, sounds -
these are not merely preferences - Watch for signs of escalating behaviors and frustrations
- use of visual cues - - provide pictures of expectations of behavior in the classroom - use of visual
cues to reinforce directions and rules, representations of planned activities, pointing toward an
instrument, when it is to be played and mimicking lyrics with hand motions as a reminder of the
words, colors
- positive directions – minimize the use of don’t and stop –
- seating them closer to the front
- - improvisation - create a context of sound in which he/she feels comfortable and confident to
express himself, to experience a wider range of emotions - children who were put into a functional
magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scanner while improvising or listening to someone improvise
music showed activity in the parts of the brain involved with communication
- Associating note names with sounds and note names with symbols on the page.
- Choosing pieces based on their interest
- Talk with the parents – work as a team
- Simplify music parts - to match the student’s level of motor skill development or intellectual ability.
- Recordings - Find recordings/audio clips of music being rehearsed/prepared for performances and
download them to playing devices for students to use during solo practice.

NOT RESPONDING?
- 6 second rule - patiently waiting for them to respond to one request before giving
them the next one. As always, positive reinforcement in the form of sincere praise
works wonders.
- Don`t say a word, nudge on the arm, come into their space a little and try to make
eye contact to repeat the instruction

CONCERTS
- Some autistic kids can have significant talent and little/no stage fright – consider prepare them
for recitals

- practice all the steps for that - t’s important to practice not only the music but althe
process of reading the program, coming up on stage, playing a piece, and then
leaving the stage appropriately.
 ENSEMBLE

- predicatable and repetitive

- interaction with other people
- consider sensory issues ((lightness-loudness-largeness)
- support person (Hard to follow spoken direction – important to have a support person next
to him to find right spots/right seats/etc)
- recordings - Record the band and have have the student practice his/her part with the
recording – learn the rests
- Practice the entire experience of coming on stage, playing, and leaving the stage – including
objects, stands, lights etc
- Placement in the band – lugar que senta, nao na frente do timpano

CHALLENGES
 The problems faced by a person with autism typically relate not to the production
of music, but to the ability to read and understand notation and to manage the
sensory issues connected with ensemble playing.

 People with autism may also take a longer time to learn the basics – notation,
dynamics, note value, etc.

 Music has too much information – it can become overwhelming – many can focus
and select very consciously on some detail, some segment, that they're going to
really hone to not get lost

 incredible ability to focus on a certain aspect of music but it can be very challenging
to get them to work on other aspects of music - ex- they love a piece and they will
play it incredible good – but it is hard to make them practice scales – try to make
them understand how working on scales will improve their pieces