Title page for ETD etd-10282005-174440

Type of Document

Thesis

Author

Chan, Yuen-man

URN

etd-10282005-174440

Title

Modifying Behaviors of Children with Autism: The Use of Musically Adapted Social Stories in Home-Based Environments

Degree

Master of Music

Department

Music, College of

Advisory Committee

Advisor Name	Title
Alice-Ann Darrow	Committee Chair
Clifford K. Madsen	Committee Member
Jayne M. Standley	Committee Member

Keywords

Behavior Modification in Autism
Music Therapy
Social Stories
Children with Autism

Date of Defense

2005-10-31

Availability

unrestricted

Abstract

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the effect of social stories and their musically adapted versions on modifying behaviors of children with autism in home-based environments within a Chinese culture. “Social stories” are used to teach social skills to children with autism by providing them with accurate social information for specific situations. Participants in this study were four Chinese children with a primary diagnosis of autism in Hong Kong. An individualized social story was created for each participant that addressed a behavioral problem identified by the parents. Original music was then composed to incorporate the sentences of the story as lyrics. An ABAC/ACAB counterbalanced design was used where the first and third components (A) represented the baseline conditions, the second component (B) represented the treatment condition “reading the story,” and the fourth component (C) represented the treatment condition “singing the story.” These conditions served as the independent variables for this study. The dependent variable was the frequency or duration of the target behavior as exhibited by the participants under each condition of the independent variables. Results indicated that both forms of the social story, spoken and sung, were successful in significantly modifying problematic behaviors in two of the four participants. These results suggest that a musical presentation of social stories may be a viable alternative treatment option to teach social skills to some children with autism.

Files

Filename		Size	Approximate Download Time (Hours:Minutes:Seconds)
Filename		Size	28.8 Modem	56K Modem	ISDN (64 Kb)	ISDN (128 Kb)	Higher-speed Access
	01_ymc_prelims.pdf	40.35 Kb	00:00:11	00:00:05	00:00:05	00:00:02	< 00:00:01
	02_ymc_text.pdf	1.26 Mb	00:05:50	00:03:00	00:02:37	00:01:18	00:00:06