Tempo-based music treatment for inducing rhythmic entrainment, systemic pacing & redirection of repetitive behaviors for children on the autism spectrum

Many behaviors in children on the Autism spectrum resemble fight-or-flight avoidance responses as a result of habitual states of fear, possibly induced by sensory integration issues causing on-going stress and deregulation of systemic pacing.
Structured tempo-based rhythm interventions at 60-beats per minute, designed for entraining systemic regulation in autism can serve to induce systemic pacing, reduction or redirection of repetitive behaviors, yielding focus, calm, attention, and learning in persons on the Autism spectrum.
An eight-week pilot study investigated whether (and how) the role of tempo in discreet activity-based music therapy treatment could influence habituation (entrainment) to regulated systemic inner rhythms, coordinating pacing, reducing stress, anxiety, and repetitive behaviors and yielding eye-contact, attention, motor-planning, and memory. Six subjects on the Spectrum, ages 8-12 with minimal expressive language, received eight 45-minute individual therapy sessions treated with four different rhythm interventions addressing breath control, regulation of arm movements, upper-lower body coordination, and drumming. Each event was repeated four times within the sessions, to a rhythmic tempo pattern at 60-beats per minute. Over the eight weeks, every session was repeated precisely the same, in the same sequence. A rating scale was devised to rate performance ability and progress in vivo, during each session. Sessions were also video-taped for follow-up ratings to confirm or modify in-vivo rates. A Lifeshirt heart monitor vest with embedded wireless sensors was worn by each subject in the first, fifth and eight session, to monitor and provide visible accounting of heart-rate activity during those three sessions.

Results appear to indicate various levels of pulse entrainment, and excellent progress and regulation in task undertaking and sequence retention by each of the six subjects, increases in motor planning abilities, visual contact, attention and reduction of repetitive behaviors were also indicated. Heart Rate data over the three sessions in which the vest was worn, display that a level of entrainment and regulation was taking place. Results tend to support the hypothesis that highly structured, tempo-specific rhythmic tasks at a slow tempo (60 beats per minute in this case) can bring about systemic pacing to redirect or reduce anxiety behaviors and yield functional adaptation.

No relevant conflicts of interest declared.