Autism and Music

Autism Spectrum disorders affect about 6 in every 1,000 people with varying severities. The prevalence has been drastically increasing since the 1980’s, but most people believe that is not due to an actual increase in the disorder but simply a change in diagnostic criteria.
Autism starts affecting children before the age of three. It is characterized by difficulty with social interactions, repetitive behaviors, and difficulty in acquiring and using language. About 0.5% to 10% of autistic individuals are called autistic savants. They are extremely gifted in one skill set or talent. Though scientists are not in agreement with the causes of autism, there are many theories that dominate the general discourse. It is commonly assumed to be a combination of environmental and genetics with differing emphasis between the two. The research that is compelling for the genetics autism paradigm involves studies of identical twins which proved that there was a 60% chance that the twin of an autistic child would develop autism. These results are staggering considering that .6% of the population has autism and fraternal twins showed no significant increase in autism prevalence.
Further, many researchers have found physical irregularities in several parts of the brain including the levels of serotonin in the brain. Specifically, research centers called “Centers of Excellence in Autism Research” have shown that connections in the brain are often impaired in autistic children. “Research is now being conducted all over the world to determine specific genes that increase the likelihood of someone developing autism. A group known as the International Molecular Genetic Study of Autism Consortium, which includes clinicians and researchers from the USA, UK, France, the Netherlands, Denmark, Italy, and Greece, has pinpointed four chromosomes which they believe play critical roles in autism. The chromosomes they identified are numbers 2, 7, 16 and 17. The evidence for involvement of chromosomes 2 and 7 is particularly strong as these had also been previously identified by other independent researchers (2,3,4,5). Chromosome 7 is known to be associated with many language disorders and chromosome 2 plays an important role in early brain development. These findings are further demonstrated by research showing dyslexia patients also have abnormalities on these chromosomes. This is not surprising as dyslexia also produces deficits in learning ability and information processing in the brain”
The problem with autism is something that we take for granted. Most of us learn how to make sense of our environment through an unconscious ability to combine our sensory information. What we hear, see, feel and know all merge to create spatial maps that allow us to understand our relative place in space. In childhood, we learn how to put our senses together to respond more efficiently to impediments presented to us in our environment. Children with autism have trouble learning to do this. They have greater difficulty creating a synthesis of all the sensory information and therefore have more difficulty responding to the environmental impediments. Sensory integration therapy is a type of occupational therapy that places children in a room specifically designed to stimulate and challenge all of the senses. This therapy is based on the assumption that the child is either overstimualted or understimulated by the environment. Specifically music therapy seeks to stimulate the auditory processing in autistic children so that the overall sensory integration will be more efficient. Music therapy seeks to regulate a common trend in autism; acute lack of total sensory integration. This is reflected and materialized in many ways in the brain.

Auditory Processing of Music
The majority of symptoms in children and adults include attention deficits, learning disabilities, autism, obsessive-compulsive disorder, depression, anxiety, chronic pain and many more are all directly a result of an imbalance of electrical activity in the brain. There are many environmental factors that can produce an imbalance of electrical activity and function of the two sides of the brain documented as either an increase of activity on one side or a decreased activity on the other.
Adverse activity is the right hemisphere which autism is expected to be specifically stimulated by low frequency tones, negative or downbeat music. Specifically, autism is a common sensory processing disorder (SPD). In children with autism, sensory integration is very difficult to accomplish. Music therapy can work as a way to increase the integration of the main sensory areas. The sensory system is broken up into three main areas: the tactile, vestibular, and the proprioceptive sense. The tactile system is your sense of touch. The vestibular system is responsible for movement and the body’s position in space. The proprioceptive system deals with muscles and joints. There are other sensory systems but they are not as commonly associated with sensory dysfunction.
The vestibulocochlear system informs us of sound, movement and orientation of space. The cochlear portion of the system turns sound or vibration into electrochemical messages that are relayed throughout the central nervous system and is critical to auditory processing. The vestibular portion serves to provide stabilization, influences attention and arousal, posture, movement, thus being critical to sensorimotor integration. It is the integration of our senses that allows us to understand what we are experiencing in our world.
Specifically, the vestibular system contributes to our balance and our sense of spatial orientation that provides input about movement and equilibrioception. (equilibrioception is what experiencial information from the vestibular system is called.) It is anatomically joined with cochlear system, and the systems lie closely together throughout the nervous system and together elaborate the general labyrinth of the inner ear.



Further, there is a profound connection between vestibular functioning and language processing. This allows for many close neuronal associations with auditory processing and language. The vestibular system sends signals primarily to the neural structures that control our eye movements, and to the muscles that keep us upright.
Decreased vestibular processing can impact on the area of speech and language development, particularly auditory processing. It is associated with autistic disorder, which are generally categorized by decreased electrical neurotransmitting activity. Research has found that therapy to improve the function of the vestibular system can also result in improved language development.


Musical Processing and Emotional Understanding
Vestibular complications are not the only ways that music can affect autism. A benefit to music therapy for autistic children aids them in verbal communication and social interaction deficits. A proposed study by Molnar Szakacs and Overy wants to compare musical processing on a neurological basis to communication, language and action. This is determined by the mirror neuron system, which allows us to abstract musical sounds similar to the ways in which humans form language when speaking and interacting. “The mirror neuron system has been proposed as a mechanism allowing an individual to understand the meaning and intention of a communicative signal by evoking a representation of that signal in the perceivers own brain “(p.235.) Spatial maps created in the brain, specifically the parietal lobe, are influenced by these mirror neurons and contribute to an overall understanding of actions and intentions. Essentially, mirror neurons enable humans to understand emotions through facial and body expressions.
Music is closely connected with motor activity. Producing music involves developed spatial maps and a physical understanding of vibrations and sounds. The mirror neuron system that allows someone to understand musical experiences is the same set of neurons that is present in motor functioning and mapping. There have been recent neuro-imaging studies that show that people with musical expertise have a change in their fronto-parietal mirror neuron system. Music is also inherently similar to language. Music is pitches composed into symphonies the way that language is words composed into novels.
The proposed study by Molnar Szakacs emphasizes the important connection between an understanding of language with an understanding of music. This is further emphasized by research conducted on other language disorders like dyslexia. The main point that Molnar Szakacs intends to look at is if language and music are so similar and if they are dictated by similar mirror neural patterns, then why can’t autistic savants with high pitch sensitivity understand facial emotions and social communications?
Mirror neurons are cells that enable normally developing people to decipher meaning and intention in actions as well as replicate those actions. Autistic children are typically noted to have a decreased or altered mirror neural system. This affects the ways in which the limbic system, which is responsible for emotions, interacts with those mirror neurons. This comes back to the point that these same mirror neurons are involved in the understanding of music. 

Music Based Therapies

So it makes sense that a program that would stimulate and help to integrate the cochlear and vestibular systems might be very helpful for the autistic child’s emotional understanding. This does not present a cure for autism, but The Listening Program (TLP) can be an effective intervention for children on the autistic spectrum.
TLP is a music-based sound stimulation program that currently consists of 8 one hour audio CD’s that contain specially processed classical music and nature sounds plus a 112 page guidebook. Listening sessions are typically fifteen minutes in length, done once or twice a day, five days a week, using high quality stereo headphones.

1- Increases engagement- The individuals experience an improvement in their self-image and an improved sense of their body in space. This enables them to feel more comfortable interacting with their surroundings. They show an increase in the toleration and need for physical contact. There is also an increase in attentiveness and initiation of eye contact.
2- Emerging Skills- When used in conjunction with other forms of therapy, it allows for better integration of the motor and sensory systems which in turn leads to a faster rate of skill acquisition.
3- Auditory Processing- It improves the accuracy and speed at which individuals process sound. This leads to better overall communication skills.
4- Reduced Sound Sensitivity- Many autistic individuals experience hypersensitivity to sounds because their nervous system is unable to regulate the sensory input. This program helps the nervous system be able to better process sensor info, which reduces sound sensitivity.