Autism-Open Access
Open Access
ISSN: 2165-7890
ISSN: 2165-7890
Bilgehan Eren
Uludag University, Turkey
Scientific Tracks Abstracts: Autism Open Access
Reading facial expressions is one of the non verbal communication skills, and consideredessential for the children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) interms of performing effective communication and social interaction with the others. The literature indicates that music therapy interventions can be used for teaching skills to this population, so it can also be used for teaching facial expression reading skill. Inthis study, it was aimed to investigate the effect of music therapy interventions on teaching facial expression of sadness to a child with ASD. The study was conducted with a 5 year-old boy with diagnosis of ASD attending a Special Education and Rehabilitation Center in Turkey. Just after baseline data collection, one-to-one music therapy interventions were carried out twice a week for 2 months. Interventions focusing sadness consisted of activities such as singing, movement and dance, musical story, musical painting, musical drawing. Descriptive analysis was used for all video taped sessions. The data of reliability among observers and of application were collected and analysed as well. The child with ASD participated in interventions eagerly and attentively. After 12 intervention sessions he showed success in recognition sadness in between of other facial expression cards. Generalization of the gained skill in the study environment was verified never the less there has been no chance to observe the skill in the real-life conditions. Permanence was kept after interventions were completed. These results suggested that the use music therapy interventions can be considered an acceptable treatment option for teaching the facial expressions to this population.
Bilgehan Eren She works as Assistant Professor at Uludag University in Turkey. She has several studies on music education / music therapy approaches in special education especially for children with Autism. She is certified trainer of the trainers in Orff-Schulwerk. She has participated in several projects and carried out doctoral and post-doctoral studies regarding musict herapy in Turkey (at Marmara University), Germany (at Technical University of Dortmund) and The U.S (at Arizona State University).
Email: bilgehaneren@gmail.com