Written by Sayli Umakant Bidkar
The goal of treatment in autism spectrum disorder is to maximise children’s ability to function, by reducing symptoms and supporting development and learning. Early intervention helps in social communication, improvising functional and behavioural skills. Many treatments have been proposed for autism spectrum disorders with most effective being combined treatment involving specialised and supportive educational programming, communication training with help of occupational and speech therapist.
Many people have anecdotes of how music therapy helps manage certain autism features in the young or how affected children, who may not have speech articulation as such, express themselves better while playing music. Of course, research and clinical trials have not reported uniform results but symptomatic relief has been observed in cases with music therapy. One of the researches in 2018 found how eight to 12 weeks of music therapy for school-aged autistic children improved functional brain connectivity, social communication and family ties. Music therapists usually say that music with strong beats and simple rhythms do the trick while easy lyrics help children with words.
MUSIC THERAPY
Individuals with autism spectrum disorder often show heightened interest, processing abilities and responses to music and develop some talent themselves.
Music provides a non-threatening, safe and enjoyable medium for individuals with autism to explore and learn new skills.
It has been used to treat autism spectrum disorder because of its potential for assisting expression, joint attention, and communication.
It helps in improving eye contact, taking turns, non-verbal communication, emotional synchronicity.
Music therapy may also help to enhance non‐verbal communication skills, increases social adaptation skills in children with ASD and to promoting the quality of parent‐child relationships.
More research using larger samples and generalised outcome measures is needed to corroborate these findings and to examine whether the effects of music therapy are enduring.
When applying the results of this review to practice, it is important to note that the application of music therapy requires specialised academic and clinical training.
PET THERAPY
This is based on studies of human-animal interaction and the understanding that unlike humans, animals are non-judgmental and can help a child be comfortable interacting with them. This helps the child communicate better with the world around him.
Pets provide a unique social bond and promote social behaviours.
A pet promotes positive feelings of care, love, and empathy in children with autism.
Pets foster healthy emotional and intellectual experiences.
Animals encourage social communication.
They reduce emotional anxiety and stress.
Training and daily care of a pet teaches responsibility, effective task management and helps boost the child’s self-esteem.
Pets reduce stress and create stronger bonds between parents and children with autism.
This article was originally published by a indianexpress.com . Read the Original article here. .