Benefits from music for the autistic

Paired with an impaired language development, children with autism can have a profound sensitivity to music: a good melodic memory, a superior ability at timbre processing, and a distinctive emotional response to song. 

Taking this cue, neuroscientists at the National Brain Research Centre (NBRC) in Gurgaon set out to see if music can “rescue” speech deficits in children with autism. The results of neuroimaging revealed that music — and the sung word — lights up parts of the right hemisphere of their brainjust as much as it does for a child without autism. 

Predictably, however, there was a diminished response to the spoken word, the researchers report in the journal Autism Research. 

For the study scientists mapped the brain activities of 22 children with autism as they heard spoken words, sung words and piano notes. They then compared these responses to “typical” children. 

When typical children listen to spoken words they primarily activate two regions in the left hemisphere — the Inferior Frontal Gyrus (IFG) and the Superior Temporal Gyrus (STG) — that are involved in language perception and understanding. 

“But in children with autism, while spoken speech elicited no activity in the left IFG and STG, sung speech showed robust brain activity and rescued this physical disruption,” said corresponding author Nandini C. Singh, of NBRC. 

“The music stimulus is clearly attractive to the autistic brain,” she said, adding that this finding suggests a promising tool for intervention and therapy. Neuroplasticity — where the brain learns to rewire through training — could be harnessed through music to at least partially restore connectivity between the frontal and temporal regions of the left hemisphere.

The message

“There is a message in this for parents, caregivers and teachers,” said Dr. Singh. It might just be possible to use music to manage the deficits in speech says the paper adding that individualized music-based interventions could work both within and beyond the autism spectrum. 

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