MUSIC AS A THERAPEUTIC RESOURCE IN CHILDREN WITH ASD TO ACHIEVE ENGAGEMENT AND SOCIAL COMMUNICATION

Abstract

Introduction: Already in the first description it was observed that children with autism had a great interest in music. It is also known that, in order for the child to better develop his linguistic skills, he must be engaged in the proposed activity. Objective: In view of this, this research aimed to analyze the functional profile of communication and the level of engagement of five children with autism in language therapy sessions associated with music and to compare such results with sessions without music. Methods: recordings of children diagnosed with autism were made and analyzed using the functional profile of communication protocol and the engagement verification scale. Results: the results showed an increase in the number of communicative acts and their more interactive functions, which appeared to be significantly higher in the sessions with music. In addition, there was a significant increase in the level of engagement and a decline in the level of disengagement in sessions with music. Conclusion: music in speech and language therapy sessions is a strategy to be considered to achieve better performance in social communication and engagement of children with autism.