Using a Music Therapy Collaborative Consultative Approach - World ...

good-bye songs with young children with autism specifically within the context of a
childcare program.
The purpose of this initial experiment was to evaluate the effectiveness of a music
therapy intervention designed to increase the independent performance of two young boys
with autism, during the morning greeting time. This transition was chosen because the target
children, who attended the FPG childcare program, were having difficulty entering the
classroom in the morning. The difficulty they exhibited during the greeting time transition
was characterized by problems separating from the caregiver; hitting, biting or screaming
upon entering the classroom; difficulty engaging with materials in the classroom; and
interacting with peers. The effect of these problems were that the target children’s caregivers
reported feeling “bad” about leaving the child while he was upset, the parents of other
children in the class reported that their children were “afraid of” the target child, and the
teachers “dreaded” the arrival of the child, saying things like “it’s fine once he’s here, but
just getting him here is hard.” It should be noted that the target children were having
difficulties with this transition in spite of the fact that a set routine had been in place for
several months.
4.2 Research Questions
The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of individually composed greeting
songs on the independent performance of two young children with autism during the morning
greeting routine, implemented by the classroom teachers. The evaluation was guided by
three overarching research questions:
79