Atypical Functional Connectivity During Unfamiliar Music Listening in Children With Autism

The Study on the Identification of Musical Passages for an Emotion Perception Scale for People With Developmental Disabilities

BACKGROUND

Emotion recognition is essential to the social adjustment and social interaction of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDDs). Given that music is a medium for expressing and conveying human emotion, we conducted this preliminary study to identify musical passages representing the basic human emotions of happiness, sadness, and anger, with the goal of developing a music-based emotion perception scale for IDDs.

METHODS

To identify musical passages for emotion perception, 20 certified music therapists evaluated 100 selected musical passages and established 60 pieces that yielded the highest agreement for each emotion category. During the second phase of this study, 300 neurotypical participants rated 60 passages in terms of the perceived type and intensity of emotions expressed.

RESULTS

The 60 passages showed high reliability and were statistically classified into three factors: happiness, sadness, and anger. The k-means cluster analysis yielded a cut-off score of 41 for the low emotion perception group (F = 1120.63, P < 0.001). The hierarchical logistic regression analysis revealed that only model 3 (musical passages) was significantly associated with low emotion perception (step χ² = 227.8, P < 0.001).

CONCLUSION

The selected musical passages demonstrated high reliability and established three factors for identifying perceptions of happiness, sadness, and anger. Neither psychological status nor individual demographic characteristics affected the emotion perception results.

Effectiveness of music therapy in children with autism spectrum disorder: A systematic review and meta-analysis

OBJECTIVES

This study was to investigated the efficacy of music therapy (MT) in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) via a meta-analysis that comprehensively evaluated data from all eligible research in this field.

DESIGN

Systematic review and meta-analysis.

SETTING

A systematic search of the PubMed, Embase, and Cochrane Library databases from inception to October 2021 to identify studies that administered MT to children with ASD.

RESULTS

Eight randomized controlled trials (RCTs) including 608 participants met the inclusion criteria. The meta-analysis showed that MT was associated with a significant increase in social reactions among children with ASD (standardized mean difference (SMD) = 0.24, 95% confidence interval (CI) [0.03, 0.46], I ² = 0%, P = 0.03). However, MT did not elicit a significant increase in symptom severity (SMD = 0.17, 95% CI [-0.04,0.38], I ² = 0%,P = 0.12), social adaptive behavior (SMD = 0.02, 95% CI [-0.44,0.48], I ² = 0%,P = 0.93) or speech (SMD = 0.04, 95% CI [-0.39, 0.47], I ² = 0%, P = 0.86) in children with ASD.

CONCLUSION

MT can improve social skills in children with ASD; however, there does not seem to be a consensus on the persistence of its effects. These findings can inform clinical practice. Promoting the use of MT in children with ASD and improving its symptoms are the ultimate goals.