Download Autism, Learning, and Music Nicole Hoppe 30 April 2016

Autism, Learning, and Music
Nicole Hoppe
30 April 2016
Introduction
Within the last century, Autism and Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) have
been on the rise. Most of this can be due to better understanding of the disorder
and more accurate diagnoses, but the Center for Disease Control and Prevention
has shared that the prevalence rate is 1 in 68 persons, an increase from 1 in 150
and 1 in 88 not too long ago (Schwartsberg & Silverman 2013). The most prominent
symptoms are the deficits seen in communication and social skills. Since these
children do not participate as much in either social or non-social activities, there is
a reduction in their opportunity to learn and be engaged in a task (Simpson, Keen,
Lamb, & Janeen, 2013).
First defined by Leo Kanner (1943) and Hans Asperger (1944), autism is a
neurodevelopmental disorder typically diagnosed in children about two to five years
of age, depending on their rate of development, and is a life-long disorder. Its name
is derived from the Greek word “autos” meaning “self,” as social isolation was a
main determining factor in early diagnoses. “Autism is a behaviorally defined
disorder, characterized by qualitative impairments in social communication, social
interaction, and social imagination, with a restricted range of interests and often
stereotyped repetitive behaviors and mannerisms” (Baird, Cass, & Slonims, 2003).
Diagnosis of ASD is a highly individualized task since the levels of severity
and ability vary from person to person. Many scientists have tried to figure out a
cause for the disorder as well as why there is so much variance between cases. In
the 1950s, the idea of the “refrigerator mother” was common. People thought that if
a mother was not loving or warm enough towards her child, the child would
experience negative effects (disorders such as ASD or schizophrenia). Today we
realize that while parental care is important, there is much more at play.
“[Symptoms] may include communication delays, repeating words or phrases,
unresponsiveness to verbal cues, social difficulties, oversensitivity (sound, light,
etc.), resistance to change, lack of direct eye contact, odd or unusual repetitive play,
and self-stimulation. Children may display some or all of these symptoms”
(Hourigan & Hourigan, 2009). Most commonly noticed behaviors that lead to a
diagnosis are social isolation and repetitive/reduced language, however all these
symptoms fall along a continuum. “What makes autism different is the great
variation in presentation, the wide range of skills and deficits, and the high rate of
associated behavioral, mental health, and often subtle learning problems” (Baird,
Cass, & Slonims, 2003). Asperger’s syndrome falls on the higher end of the
functioning continuum and is characterized by autistic symptoms but no language
barrier.
Behavioral and language impairments can interfere with learning, especially
at critical ages in youth for reading and writing. On top of impaired social
development skills, this can have a heavy impact on the child at school. Along with
behavior, autistic individuals also experience emotional deficits. Alexithymia, the
inability to cognitively label one’s emotions, is a common feature seen in autism as
well as other disorders such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), major
depressive disorder (MDD), panic disorder, and substance abuse.
There are two types of alexithymia: Type I is a failure to experience or
describe emotion while Type II is an ability to experience emotions, but an inability
to name or discriminate emotions (Allen & Heaton, 2010). Due to an inability to
experience or cognitively appraise emotions, listening to music is a different
experience for autistic persons because they listen to the properties of the music
(timbre, rhythm, pitch, etc.) instead of how they feel when they listen to it.
Learning & Music
During development, there are two crucial times for which the brain is highly
sensitive to external factors, prenatal development and adolescence (puberty).
During these times the brain goes through a natural “pruning” process. Neurons
are constantly making connections as the child is developing and learning, and the
brain will make many more pathways than it actually needs. As the child grows,
the pathways that are not used are essentially eliminated to make the connections
that are frequently used more efficient. One theory for autism is that the brain fails
to go through a normal pruning process (Hill & Firth, 2003).
While brain scans do not show too many differences between autistic brains
and normal brains (besides areas that light up during tasks, suggestive of the
process used within the brain), there are cellular differences that scientists have
noted. The neurons seem to be of a slightly reduced size and densely packed in the
limbic system (an area critic for emotional and social behavior due to reward
mechanisms). The cerebellum, a major filter of information going to the brain and
responsible for certain aspects of attention and movement, is another structure
suggestive of playing a role in autism due to overstimulation of the brain (which in
turn can cause behavioral outbursts or repetitive behavior to occur).
Evidence for the pruning theory may also reside in cognitive function. Topdown processing is the way in which we use our thoughts (cognitive capabilities) to
appropriately label information that has been brought to one’s attention. Using
context clues one can define what a certain stimulus could be. Bottom-up
processing starts with the stimulus and is identified based on past knowledge.
During the pruning process, top-down processes are not pruned, but the bottom-up
approach was developed and pruned normally. Top-down processing relies on
feedback mechanisms, and because this takes more time it may miss the initial
pruning process, leaving neural networks behind that aren’t necessary. This could
also help explain the sensory overload that autistic children experience. If they can
register a stimulus (bottom-up processing) but not cognitively label that stimulus
effectively, (top-down processing) it is an added stressor on the brain and therefore
the child.
Another noted deficit is the child’s inability to acquire “theory of mind,” the
ability to understand that you yourself possess ideas and beliefs but that other
people do too. A fault in theory of mind could be the reason that communication is
difficult for autistic children. They essentially have a “mentalizing failure” in which
they have no intuitive ability to comprehend the mental state of another person
(Hill & Firth, 2003). To try to find a way around these communication blocks,
researchers have developed alternatives.
One method some classrooms utilize is called picture exchange
communication system (PECS). A picture is paired up with a word, making it
easier for the child to express an action or an object. “One of the characteristics of
autism is severe disturbance in communication. In understanding this
communication barrier, it is important to understand that children on the spectrum
may comprehend much more than they can express verbally (or vice versa)”
(Hourigan & Hourigan, 2009).
With autism it is characteristic of the child to remember certain words or
details when compared to actually remembering the main points of the story. This
is known as weak central coherence. They have good focused attention but poor
strategy when making connections between perceptual processes (Hill & Firth,
2003). Perceptual coherence is another term to describe misperceptions, but to a
lesser degree as “people with autism were better able to make accurate judgements
of illusions compared to normal of developmentally delayed controls” (Happe, 1999).
There are other forms of coherence such as visuospatial-constructional and verbalsemantic. While autistic children are rather good at seeing the parts of a whole,
they “do not make use of either semantic relations (same category vs assorted
words) or grammatical relations (sentences vs word lists)” (Happe, 1999).
Another method recently tested was called Social Stories. The idea is that
stories are told from a third-person perspective and are about daily living activities
and proper social behaviors. Going further into this idea, researchers were curious
if telling the stories in a song could make them even more effective (Schwartzberg &
Silverman, 2013). There was a routine schedule (important in maintaining with
autistic children because change can lead to behavioral outbursts) in the classroom
sessions. Some groups were sung the story while other groups were read the same
story. The study gave results that showed a significant improvement of proper
behaviors when music was involved compared to the control group. “Simple social
etiquette can be difficult for a child with autism,” but “music can be a perfect setting
for children on the spectrum to strengthen their social skills” (Hourigan &
Hourigan, 2009).
Music is ingrained in every single culture making it a prominent part of
behavior and emotion. Effects due to music are “linked to ways which musical
materials, biographical and situated couplings, and generic/stereotypes are
associated with types of people, scenes, situations, and moods” (DeNora, 2007).
Those who know nothing about music are able to form connections due to these
factors.
Other aspects of music however stand out to different people. “Musically
naïve children with autism are significantly better than matched controls at
learning labels (note names) for individual pitches” as well as having absolute (or
perfect) pitch ability (Happe, 1999). In fact, a majority of the children studied when
first observing autism (by both Kanner and Asperger) were proficient in music.
Some could discriminate between an obscene amount of symphonies while others
seems to be more musically talented than a “normally developing” child.
One theory behind this ability to remember the sound of pieces has nothing
to do with music. The fact that some autistics have more capacity for remembering
details is reason to prove that they simply know more non-musical than musical
aspects of a piece. It also supports the idea behind the incredible calendar
calculations some autistics, particularly savants, are capable of since “statistical
learning, the mechanism that enables individuals to extract and represent higherorder domain specific structures, from the stimuli to which they are exposed, has
been widely implicated in music” (Heaton, 2009).
Music is abundant with pattern and structure, making it a rewarding
experience (also similar to calendar calculations). However music is different in
the aspects of music (timbre, rhythm, pitch, etc.) are able to capture attention and
the aspects used in various ways are capable of producing emotions (Heaton, 2009).
It is important to note that “it would never be assumed that a typically developing
child would develop musical skills without tuition and supported/extensive
practice,” and the same can be said for autistic persons. While those with autism
may be more sensitive to music, they do not necessarily understand music better
than another child (Heaton, 2009).
When doing musical studies that are two experimental strategies: The first
is to “manipulate musical features” in order to control particular mechanisms of the
piece and the second is to find pieces of music that fit within relevant
characteristics being studied. As it is much easier to use the first method, that is
the one most always often used (Juslin, Barradas, & Eerola, 2015). Manipulations
can also occur in the form of environmental stimuli that could distract from or
enhance a particular characteristic of music. Emotions are most often self-reported
based on a scale defined by the researcher, so the more specific the procedures and
design, the more validity and reliability a study will appear to have.
In the future we can “expect music therapy to have a use in the opening and
sustaining of third party relationships with (some) highly autistic people” (Graham,
2001). While at times it may be difficult to assess emotions with respect to music,
the idea of using music as a learning tool to assist in encouraging proper social
behaviors can potentially be an effective format for those with autism.
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