Collaborations between music therapist and parents to transfer music therapy activities into the home context for children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Abstract

This qualitative research study explored areas of similarity and contrast between a music therapy student's interpretations of selected audiovisual excerpts from music therapy sessions with a child with Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD), and his parent's interpretations of the same. A further feature of the study was investigating how these interpretations could inform the collaborative creation of a music activity for use in the home environment. Eight one-on-one music therapy sessions were conducted with an eight year-old boy with ASD at Alpha School in the Western Cape. The sessions were video recorded. Once the music therapy process was complete, four primary excerpts and five secondary excerpts were selected. Interpretations of the four primary excerpts were written by the music therapy student. A semi-structured interview consisting of two parts was then conducted with the child's parent. Part one involved eliciting the parent's interpretations of the four primary excerpts. Part two involved the viewing of the five secondary excerpts as part of a discussion between the music therapy student and parent, leading to the collaborative creation of a music activity for the home environment. The interpretations of the music therapy student and parent were matched with the music therapy student's interpretations for the purposes of qualitative content analysis and comparative analysis. Codes were derived for the interpretations, and then grouped into sub-categories and categories. Two overarching themes were then drawn from the data: operation of the music therapy student's contextual lens; and operation of the parent's lens. Within these two themes, different sub-themes were present: music therapy student’s reflexivity; focus on developing relationship; focus on clinical musical features; valuing offerings as musical; parent's pride in her child; noticing musical interactions; and focusing on successful interactions. These themes then implicitly informed the collaborative creation of a music activity for the home context.