Effects of music on attention and self-stimulatory behaviors in autistic people

The effects of music on attention and self-stimulation were investigated. A single subject, repeated measures, design was employed and replicated on each subject. Subjects were exposed to the baseline condition, i.e. no music, for a minimum of seven consecutive sessions prior to the introduction of music. Subjects were exposed several times to each condition in ABACA order. The first baseline consisted of a minimum of seven consecutive sessions and each subsequent condition consisted of a single session. Five students from The Center for Developmental Disabilities participated in this study. Each participant had diagnoses of Autistic Disorder and Mental Retardation. They were referred by special education teachers based on the criteria that they displayed high rates of auditory self-stimulation.; Subjects were required to perform an attention task on a computer using Captain's Log Cognitive Training Systems software. This task involved pressing a mouse in response to a visual stimulus on a monitor. The three levels of the independent variable were no background music, slow tempo music, and fast tempo music. The response measures for attention included response latency, and frequency of correct and incorrect responses. Response measures for attention were frequency and duration. It was hypothesized that background music would improve attention and reduce auditory self-stimulation. It was also hypothesized that fast tempo music would have a more positive effect on subjects exhibiting low baseline rates of self-stimulation, and that slow tempo music would have a more positive effect on those exhibiting high baseline rates of self-stimulation.; The results of this study offer some support to the hypothesis that music improves attention. The hypothesis that music reduces auditory self-stimulation and the tempo hypothesis were not supported. Other findings include a great deal of variability in self-stimulatory behaviors both between and within subjects, as well as positive correlations between self-stimulation and response latency p {dollar}<{dollar}.01 and negative correlations between self-stimulation and response accuracy p {dollar}<{dollar}.01. Results were discussed in terms of clinical application and optimal arousal theory.