Summary of research: Autism

Kathleen M. Howland, Ph.D.

Music study group for Northborough-Southborough school district

Anecdotally, parents and therapists have long reported a ‘magical’ response to music by children diagnosed on the spectrum. These responses, even as infants contrast the ways in which they seem to ignore speech and environmental sounds, subsequently children on the spectrum have frequently been confused or misdiagnosed as deaf or hard-of-hearing. Pamela Heaton, a noted researcher in autism reported that, “data from empirical studies show that many autistic children possess musical potential that can and should be developed” (2009).

Preliminary research by Wan and Schlaug (2012) demonstrates why this preference for and competence in music may be so. A structure called the arcuate fasciculus (AF) conjoins the language and speech centers in the brain. The AF is generally thicker in the left hemisphere of typically developed individuals like those of reading this review. In a small sample, however, four of five nonverbal children on the spectrum were shown to have a thicker arcuate fasciculus on the right. This asymmetry may explain the severity of the speech and language deficits that are left hemisphere-centric as well as the interest in music. Melody perception is typically a right hemisphere moderated activity.

Perfect or absolute pitch is prevalent throughout the spectrum. This high level of auditory perceptual ability of people on the spectrum results in extraordinary attention to music. They often have the capacity to reproduce what they hear without any training. This provides an important entry point for catalyzing responsivity to sound with meaning. An example of this is that sung cues are often more effective than spoken cues (Sharda, et al., 2014). In addition to facilitating speech and language, music has been used to improve social communication, a significant deficit for those on the spectrum. Gains were evident after just 8-12 weeks of individualized music interventions (Sharda, et a., 2018).

Bibliography

Heaton, P. (2009). Assessing musical sills in autistic children who are not savants. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of Biological Sciences 364(1522), 1443-7

Sharda, M., Tuerk, C., Chowdhury, R., Jamey, K., Foster, N., Custo-Blanch, M., Tan, M., Nadig, A. & Hyde, K. (2018). Music improves social communication and auditor-motor connectivity in children with autism. Translational Psychiatry 8(231)

Wan, CY, Marchina, S, Norton, A, & Schlaug G. (2012). Atypical hemispheric asymmetry in the arcuate fasciculus of completely nonverbal children with autism. Annuals of New York Academy of Sciences, 1252, 332-7.