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

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(ABA). Application of the behavioral intervention curriculum for young children with
autism started in the seventies. The treatment usually lasts three years, is time-consuming
and involves an intensive training. In the first year, a trained therapist and parents primarily
use a one-to-one discrete trial format in the child’s home. In a discrete trail training, the
therapist-parent team breaks down the tasks into short simple pieces, or ‘trials.” The
appropriate response to cues is followed by consequences that are reinforcing for the
individual. The assumption is that behavior rewarded is more likely to be repeated than
behavior ignored. Intervention goals are responding to requests, imitating, playing with toys,
self-help skills and interaction with family members, followed during the second year by
teaching communicative language, abstract concepts, emotion discrimination, pre-academic
skills, and observational learning. Socialization and integration into school and other
community settings is the focus of the third year. A full-time aide who is familiar to the
child, assists her or him in generalizing previously mastered skills, following the classroom
routine and responding to classroom teacher and peers until the child functions independently
in the new environment (Smith et al., 2001).
Treatment and Education of Autistic and Related Communication Handicapped
Children (TEACCH). Founded in North Carolina in 1972, this program provides statewide,
comprehensive community-based services to people with ASD from preschool to adult life.
There are two preschool demonstration classrooms. In addition, educational services for
preschool children are provided within the child’s natural environment by assessment,
individual program planning, parent and teacher training, and consultation. Based on
research findings indicating that children with autism learn better in structured rather than in