Elisabeth University of Music

Challenges in social responsiveness and social communicative behaviors are often observed in autistic children. It is imperative to develop effective treatment methods to enhance social communication and reciprocity in autistic children. This study examines the efficacy of two particular treatment methods to improve social communication including Reciprocal Communication Training (RCT) and Reciprocal Communication Training through Music (RCTM). Ten autistic children participated in this study and engaged in musical and nonmusical interventions that addressed greeting, receptive communication, imitation, initiation, and emotional congruence with facial expression, emotion identification, and emotional attunement. To analyze the impact of these interventions, the study included dependent samples t-tests to explore the differences in reciprocal communicative behaviors of autistic children between RCT and RCTM. A paired t-test analysis indicated that there were significant differences between RCT and RCTM on greeting, imitating behavior, initiating behavior, and emotional (happy vs. sad) congruence. The results indicated that participants who underwent RCTM demonstrated enhanced reciprocal communicative skills, particularly evident in the participants' improved greeting and imitation behaviors. This improvement was observed across both early and late intervention stages. Moreover, the study suggests that RCTM had a positive influence on various aspects of reciprocal and affective communication, optimizing the effects of music to create a sensory-rich environment for enhanced engagement. RCTM emerges as a promising method for fostering social communication skills in autistic children, offering potential benefits for their educational and therapeutic outcomes.

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