Research: Sowing Seeds of Compassion: The Case of a Music Therapy Integration Group

Authored by Gilboa, A., and Ben-Shetrit S. in The Arts in Psychotherapy, Volume 36, Issue 4, p. 251-260, (2009).

Article summary (posted Jan 29, 2010):

Integrating children with autism and normally-developing children in music therapy may help foster compassion.

This study measured kindness in 4 children who were placed together in a music therapy group. The group included two children with pervasive developmental disorder (PDD) and two normally-developing children (9 and 10 years old). The children met for 14 weekly sessions for 30 minutes each. The normally-developing children showed more compassion over the 14-week period. Compassion ranged from tolerating unusual behaviors to an equal-leveled acceptance of the children with autism. Compassionate actions increased from about 2 per session to about 6 per session. The authors think that music therapy encourages compassion by encouraging togetherness and listening to other children.

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You can access the original abstract and the complete paper is sometimes available for free via Google Scholar (look for entries that say "PDF" or "HTML" on the right side of the page).
autism, music therapy, pervasive developmental disorder (PDD), therapy
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