Psychology

Review of The effect of background music and song texts on the emotional understanding of children with autism

For one to be considered as having a health emotional understanding, one must be able to not only have an understanding of other peoples emotions but the ability to express ones emotions is equally important. It is unfortunate for children with autism since they have difficulties in understanding several emotions more so nonverbal cues. Mt-Bc Mm Katagiri observes that the diminished emotional understanding making the autistic children miss some of the benefits of social interactions.

It is a common observation to have children with autism being socially withdrawn due to the impaired emotional understanding. Among the emotional difficulties experience include lack of ability to perceive others emotions by just looking at their facial expression. Malformations in the parts of the brain responsible for recognizing and interpreting emotions have been cited as the causes.

Despite the fact that there is a biological basis for autism, Katagiri identifies that emotions can be successfully taught leading to overall improvement in understanding emotions. Whereas autistic children can be taught emotions by use of visual aids, the author of this article postulates music as an effective tool to teach emotions in children with autism. The specific components that hold promise to the correction of emotional understanding in autistic children include the tempo of the music, timbre, as well as other characteristics of music. This postulate is based on previous findings of improved emotional status of autistic children upon playing or even listening to music. Such music can be in form of background music or even use of song texts. The background music is provided while the autistic child is being taught other skills. In such a case, the childs awareness of music relays the emotions that would otherwise be hard to express any other way. Song texts on the other hand act as visual illustrations of songs and at the same time the intended emotions. Song texts are particularly important as social stories as they help children with autism to have a feel of the social context in addition to understanding the emotional part of the environment.

From such an understanding, Katagiri goes ahead to investigate how music would influence the emotions of children with autism. In specific, the study focuses on how background music and text music would influence the childs happiness, how the emotions of sadness would be affected, whether there is any effect on anger as well as fear. Not only did Katagiri seek to identify the effect of background music on the above emotions in autistic children but he also sought to know what would be the magnitude of emotion improvement. By using different treatment environments such as the background music as well as other control environments, this study would confirm whether background music is an effective emotional therapy in autism individuals. Art in form of background music and song text is portrayed as having the ability to address psychological shortcomings. Music is acting as a therapeutic target on the psychological basis of autism.

From this study conducted on autistic children in their late childhood to mid-adolescence who had emotional difficulties, interesting findings were identified. This was based on recorded emotional status prior to commencement and at the end of the study. A positive influence on all the emotions under study was identified upon administration of background music. Specifically, the ability to read other peoples emotions was greatly enhanced the same way the ability to express ones emotions was. Background music was confirmed as an effectual tool for improving all the emotions under study. Song texts also served well as enhancers of emotional wellbeing of children with autism but not with the same magnitude as background music. In terms of emotions, Katagiri noted a remarkable improvement on happiness emotion compared to the other emotions. The fear emotion was also identified as highly influenced by background music and song texts but this happened only in contextual conditions.

Despite the fact that the findings of this study confirmed previous findings on the benefits of music in treatment of emotional difficulties in autism, the sample that was used was too small. Katagiri therefore cautions against making a generalization of the findings. In addition the study was noted to be limited in that the ability to maintain the improved emotional understanding over time was not tested. As such, the success of applying the therapy in real life situations or in new environments is not guaranteed. In spite of these few shortcomings of the study, the findings are not in conflict with previous research that has identified the power of music in restoring emotional understanding in autistic children.

Katagiris findings are undoubtedly important in understanding how art can be used to positively influence psychology. The art of music is being utilized to correct abnormal emotional status. In this case, background music emerges as an effectual tool for restoring happiness and social wellbeing of children with autism. Teaching emotions to children with autism would achieve added benefits if background music and song texts are also incorporated.