Psychology

The general area of interest is about children with autism. Autism is defined as a severe developmental disorder that begins at birth or within the first two-and-a-half years of life. (Autism Research Institute, 2008) Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that an average of 1 in 110 children in theU.S. have an ASD. (2010) This ratio is pretty alarming considering that only 5 out of 10,000 live births were afflicted with ASD, and that the all-time high during the 1990s was 60 ASD-afflicted children per 60,000. (Autism Research Institute, 2008)

The good thing about this developmental disorder is that people afflicted with it can still live a normal life. Unbeknownst to many people, autism allows a person to narrow down the interests of the person into specific activities which makes them all the more interested and attentive to that activity. Many people with autism excel in the fields of dancing, singing, painting, and playing musical instruments.
And for the purpose of this research, the researcher formulates the working title The Effects of Music Therapy on Lowering Anxiety in Children with Autism and Increasing Appropriate Behavior. Why study music, specifically Sue Bennett, an autism coach explains that gifted and autistic children tend to have skills that are based in the right brain  they typically have a larger right brain and are more likely to have anomalies in the left brain. Gifted or savant abilities typically occur in right brain skills such as art, music, and math. Deficits in these same children typically occur in the brain activities normally handled by the left brain such as language and social skills.

This statement edifies that autistic children are simply right-brain dominant people. They may not be able to function as well as those with a normal left brain development, but they can well surpass the artistic abilities of people who do not have ASDs. And that is why organizations such as Music for Autism are established to help in the therapy of children with ASD.

Theoretical Perspectives
Most researchers who have been through this research area before applied behavioral and humanistic theories for their theoretical perspectives. While this researcher believes that people with autism have largely relative reactions to different stimuli, using a humanistic perspective will make it even harder to quantify and is thus unfit for the quantitative part of this research. And while behaviorism justifies how children with ASD were taught during music therapies, it does not account for the will or innate talent of the people who participate in the therapeutic sessions. The researcher will then employ the Cognitive Behavioral theoryHoward Gardners Theory of Multiple Intelligencesto explain the ease musical learning among children with ASD. This is due to two things 1) to deviate from the perspective of past researchers, 2) to spur new inputs and thus new results in the course of the research.

Review of Quantitative Literature
 Music therapy for autistic spectrum disorder a research conducted by Christian Gold, Tony Wigram, and Cochavit Elefant was the latest in the areas of music therapy for people with autism. (Christian Gold, 2004)

And it will certainly be of great help to himherespecially in helping children with ASD better understand emotions and learn to recognize emotions in others. (Wheeler, 2009) Better understanding among children with autism and the people around them will lead to more meaningful connections and less frustration in the part of the child. Being devoid of the verbal faculty to inform people of what he wants or needs, children with ASD may now opt to use music in order to understand and be understood in return.

Formulating the Quantitative Research Question
Research Question
What are the significant changes after undergoing the music therapy sessions
Variables

The independent variables will be the people with ASD who will be observed throughout the course of this experiment. Also included in the independent variables are the different music therapy interventions such as the Orff, Kodaly, and Creative Music Therapy. The dependent variables are the effects in the behavior and anxiety levels of the participants in the experiment.

Hypotheses
Null

This hypothesis predicts that no significant results will show after the Creative Music Therapy intervention has been facilitated for at least 10 sessions (with a length of 2 hours per session) to the participants who have ASD. After the 10-session program, striking differences will not be seen when the control group anxiety levels and appropriate behavior is measured against that of those who received therapy.

Alternative
On the other hand, the alternative hypothesis predicts that significant results will show among ASD-afflicted children who received Creative Music Therapy for at least 10 sessions. They participants will show considerable decrease in their anxiety levels and will show more appropriate behavior than the children from the control group.

Asking the Quantitative Research Questions
Quantitative Design
The researcher believes that the most appropriate research design is quasi-experimental since getting random populations and samples might lead the researcher to getting participants from different geographical locations. The difference in geographical locations will also complicate the research because it will already factor in the analysis of different variables such as difference in weather, culture, administration of the musical therapy and different professionals who employ the same therapy.

Population and Sample
Since this is a quasi-experimental design, it has been predetermined that all of the participants will come from San Francisco, California. The researcher plans to contact the different music therapy providers in the city by personally visiting their office and inquiring about the services that they offer. Due to restrictions on private information regarding people with special abilities like children with ASD, personal letter will be given to the parents or guardians of the music therapy centers clients asking for permission to participate in the experiment being undertaken. And from the number of those who responded positively, a sample will be determined. The participants will be from age 12-18 and will constitute a mix of male and female participants. And in order to fulfill the requirements of an experiment, a control group will be recruited as well. The control group must be ASD-afflicted, but are not receiving any form of treatment as of the moment.

Instruments
The independent variables such as the anxiety levels will be measured via recording the existence of phobias, occurrence of panic disorders and generalized anxiety disorders among the participants. After the therapy sessions, the same variables will be measured again to determine whether the therapy brought significant contributions to the participants anxiety levels. The occurrence of appropriate behavior will be measured through recording the specific routines that the participants are doing before the therapy starts and a counter assessment will be made after the 10-sessiont therapy ended.
Data Collection (Procedures)

The data collection will take place in the clinic where the music therapy is being conducted. The researcher will observe what methods are involved during the therapy behind one-way window shades so as not to distract the person undergoing the therapy. The collection of data may also continue at homebut only if the guardiansparents approve of it. In the event that the researcher is not approved of house entry, questionnaires will be given to the parents wherein they will have check boxes with corresponding symptoms of anxiety and behaviors. The parentsguardians will check the boxes corresponding to the applicable symptoms that manifests and behaviors that they still see.
Quantitative Data Analysis

To test whether anxiety levels are really lowered among people who have undergone music therapy, the participants will be assessed before the therapy begins. The instances when their anxiety levels are highest will be recorded and they will be tested periodically during the course of the therapy. At the end of the therapy sessions, the participants will be put in a situation in which the researcher previously recorded boosts high anxiety levels.

For the analysis of appropriate behavior, the participants previous activities prior to receiving therapy will be recorded and their added or modified behavior during and after the therapy will also be recorded. The researcher will then observe whether the participants are doing more appropriate behaviors (according to general societal standards promulgated in American ethics classes).

Limitations
There is a great possibility that a significant number of activities will not be witnessed by the researcher so a big chunk of the data gathering is relayed to the information contributed by the parentsguardian of the participants. Given that the people who will answer the questionnaires will try to contribute as much information about the behavior and anxiety levels of their ASD-afflicted relatives, the experiment will generate good conclusions at the end.

As to what degree will the experiment be representative of a larger population, the researcher believes that the culture of participants might play a role in the way they behave and what experiences they are anxious about. Therefore, replicating the same kind of experiment in other parts of the country or in other countries will have to take into consideration the cultural interplay involved. This is the reason why the researcher thinks the population is not homogenous and will not, therefore, lead to the same results.

Ethical Issues
Different ethical issues will be encountered by the researcher in conducting this research. From the sourcing of population and samples, the right to privacy of some people may be violated. And the researcher thought of simple making letters and disseminating them through the therapy centers front desk clerk in order to minimize unwanted contact of the family decides not to participate in the experiment.

Also, asking informed consent from the participants is one of the ethical tenets in conducting research. However, using a one-way mirror violates this (and right to privacy). Their being ASD-afflicted does not give the researcher the right to bypass asking for their informed consent but the researcher realized that it is best to become detached from the sampling participants and them being known (or seen) might interfere in the way the experiment goes.

Qualitative Research Design
Introduction
The qualitative research design is important in researches because it often acts as a generator of new ideas and input for the research. For this particular research, the researcher wants to do launch the qualitative research design before the quantitative part in order to determine which type of music therapy, among the dozens presents in music therapy centers, is the most popular among parents of ASD-afflicted children in San Francisco. After narrowing down the choices, the researcher can thus concentrate on what kind of therapy she must tackle.

Area of Interest and Statement of the Issue
The qualitative part of this research into which types of music therapy do people enroll their relatives with ASD into and why. The researcher wants to know the reason why a parent chose that specific type of music therapy to be given to their child with autism. Is it because of popularity, the availability of therapist, peer recommendation, etc

Theoretical Perspective
The theoretical perspective would be Symbolic Interactionism, propose by George Herbert Mead. Since Grounded research (Creswell J. 2009) is largely based on this theory, the researcher determined that it will best explain why the results of the survey results.

Qualitative Literature Review
There was a study conducted by Hargreaves and North about the social psychology of music. This reference has a brief explanation between the relationship of anxiety and music therapy and the affective responses to music. (Hargreaves, 1997) Another is that of Vanessa Green, et. al. entitled Internet survey of treatments used by parents of children with autism. (Vanessa A. Green, 2006) Both are deemed useful in analyzing the underlying reasons for preference of a particular kind of therapy.

Formulating the Qualitative Research Questions

Research Question
Is there a particular kind of music therapy that has beneficial effects on people with ASD
Asking the Qualitative Research Question

Qualitative Design
The design for this qualitative experiment will be that of Grounded Theory. The researcher wants to know more about the probable link between how people define reality and how their beliefs are related to their actions (Creswell J. 2009) and the choice of music therapy centers.

Population and Sample
The predetermined population will be that of San Francisco. The researcher will use Snowball sampling since information about people with ASD are hardly in the know. Upon making the first respondent answer a questionnaire, another one will be recruited through being volunteered by the first one. Of course, the volunteered person must fist accept the invitation to participate in the experiment or the researcher would have to look for another respondent.

Data Collection and the Role of the Researcher
Data collection will be in the form of surveys and possibly of interactive interviewswhen the need arises. The researcher believes that the survey sheets would suffice in determining what music therapy is most popular and why this is so.

Qualitative Data Analysis
In order to verify whether the information collected were accurate, the researcher will tally the questionnaires according to music therapy name and will counter-check it against the number of enrollment in therapy centers specializing in those kinds of music therapies. And since the therapy centers are limited only to San Francisco then it would be easier for the researcher to track down where these therapy centers are.

Limitations
The limitations for this research design is that the researcher is in danger of receiving inaccurate information coming from people who have never really enrolled their children in music therapy centers but are saying otherwise. Ranking the choices might also seem like a problem especially if the parents only know a particular type of music therapy and are not able to provide information about the comparison of different music therapies.

Ethical Issues
Research involving getting the preference of people for certain products and services are very common nowadays. As long as it does not coerce the respondents to pick a predetermined choice or is well informed about the experiment being conducted then the survey is within the ethical realm of research.