Music therapy with young people who have profound intellectual and developmental disability: Four case studies exploring communication and engagement within musical interactions

Abstract

Background: The impact of music therapy on the communicative behaviours of young people with profound intellectual and developmental disability has not yet been established. Method: Four adolescents participated in individual music therapy (MT) and toy play sessions with the same therapist in a 6-month period. Sessions were video-recorded and analysed based on The Inventory of Potentially Communicative Acts (Sigafoos, J., Arthur-Kelly, M., & Butterfield, N. (2006). Enhancing everyday communication for children with disabilities. Baltimore, MA: Brookes) to compare the communicative behaviours within each condition. Results: Both conditions successfully engaged the young people, with slightly ..