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

The present study investigated the effectiveness of a music therapy program me in the enhancement of the social skills of children with moderate intell ectual disability. Thirty-two children (age range=5-10 years) from four int ellectual disability centres participated. At each centre, four children we re randomly selected to participate in the music therapy programme, while f our children were assigned to a non-music control group programme. One staf f 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 perio d. Five social skills were targeted for intervention: turn-taking, imitatio n, vocalization, initiation and eye contact. Measures of effectiveness invo lved comparison of pre- and post-intervention scores on five target skills using a brief social skills test specifically designed for the study. Evalu ation forms completed by teachers also provided feedback on the effectivene ss of the intervention. The results reflect significant improvements in the five target social skills across both conditions following the 8-week inte rvention. However, this difference was found to be independent of the music /non-music intervention.