Tehnici de muzicoterapie neurologică pentru dezvoltarea limbajului la copiii cu tulburare din spectrul autismului

Neurological Music Therapy (NMT), as a model of music therapy identifies techniques that have been incorporated into medical settings. Thaut and Hoemberg (2014) describe NMT as the use of standardized treatment techniques as interventions that are founded on scientific research. The techniques of NMT provide the therapeutic application of music to cognitive, sensory, and motor dysfunctions used as a method to treat neurological diseases. The present study is focused on the use of neurological music therapy to enhance language development and to improve cognitive functioning and motor skills. The study is quite new for the Romanian literature, due to the fact that the techniques included in neurological music therapy have not been used for children with ASD. Our group consisted of two preschool children diagnosed with ASD, for whom we applied the Isolated Sounds Assessment Sheet, the Portage Test, and the Musical Communicative Rating Form before and after the implementation of the music therapy program. At the same time, the children were observed during all the therapy sessions. The results confirm our assumptions, the level of development of the linguistic area will be significantly higher, as well as the articulatory skill level and the cognitive and sensory-motor level, at the end of the study.