title: Music therapy: An effective approach in improving social skills of children with autism.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  The existing methodological weakness in conducted researches concerning music therapy (MT) for children with autism led to ambiguity and confusion in this scope of studies. The aim of the present research is to identify the effectiveness of MT method in improving social skills of children with autism and its stability, as well.
  
  
  METHODS
  In the form of a clinical trial study with design of pretest/posttest/follow-up with control group, among the children with autism in community of Tehran city, on the basis of childhood autism rating scale, 27 children with mild to moderate autism were chosen and were divided into two groups of experiment (n = 13), and control (n = 14). Social skills' level of both groups was measured and recorded with the help of social skills rating system scale. The children of the experiment group participated in MT programs of Orff-Schulwerk for 45 days in 12 sessions (two sessions of 1-h/week), whereas the control group received no intervention. The data were analyzed with Statistic Package For Social Science (SPSS) software t-test and analysis of covariance was used to compare groups.
  
  
  RESULTS
  In posttest, the results of covariance analysis showed a significant increase in social skills' scores of the experiment group (P < 0.001). Also, results of the paired-sample t-test showed that the effectiveness of MT has been persistent up to the follow-up phase.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The study showed that MT is an effective method with deep and consistent effects on improving social skills of children with autism.
authors.affiliation: Department of Curriculum Studies, Kharazmi University, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Seyyed Nabiollah
authors.initials: SN
authors.lastname: Ghasemtabar
authors.affiliation: Department of Education, Allameh Tabatabai University, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Mahbubeh
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Hosseini
authors.affiliation: Department of Education, Allameh Tabatabai University, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Irandokht
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Fayyaz
authors.affiliation: Department of General Psychology, Kharazmi University, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Saeid
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Arab
authors.affiliation: Department of Education, Shahid Chamran University, Ahvaz, Iran.
authors.forename: Hamed
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Naghashian
authors.affiliation: Department of Children Psychology, Islamic Azad University of Birjand, Birjand, Iran.
authors.forename: Zahra
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Poudineh
keywords: Autism; music therapy; social skills