Role of music therapy in social skills development in children with moderate intellectual disability

The present study investigated the effectiveness of a music therapy programme in the enhancement of the social skills of children with moderate intellectual disability. Thirty-two children (age range=5-10 years) from four intellectual disability centres participated. At each centre, four children were randomly selected to participate in the music therapy programme, while four children were assigned to a non-music control group programme. One staff member was trained in each group procedure at each centre, and requested to run 30-min group sessions twice weekly over an 8-week intervention period. Five social skills were targeted for intervention: turn-taking, imitation, vocalization, initiation and eye contact. Measures of effectiveness involved comparison of pre- and post-intervention scores on five target skills using a brief social skills test specifically designed for the study. Evaluation forms completed by teachers also provided feedback on the effectiveness of the intervention. The results reflect significant improvements in the five target social skills across both conditions following the 8-week intervention. However, this difference was found to be independent of the music/non-music intervention.