Poster #19 - The Effects of a Music-Making Program on Engagement Behaviours of Adolescents with Intellectual Disabilities

• In Event: Poster Session 02

Abstract

People with intellectual disabilities have been shown to respond well to music therapy and intervention, given their strong musical interests and emotional responses to music. Consequently, music interventions focus on the person’s unique interest to encourage engagement behaviours. Music interventions are usually performed in one-on-one settings and are associated with significant costs. Moreover, one-on-one settings do not allow for the assessment of “on-task behaviours” in a group (e.g. listening and following instructions given to a group, following along with peers, etc.), which are proxies for engagement and are necessary to foster appropriate learning, the development of student-teacher relationships and adhering to social rules. Thus, this study aimed to investigate the efficacy of a school-based group music-making program on observable on-task behaviours of adolescents with intellectual disabilities. We also aimed to explore if changes reported in the musical activities (e.g. playing percussions) would generalize to non-musical activities (e.g. the warm-up). A music program, implemented by the community organization ÉducaTED, was conducted over a period of 11 weeks in a high school setting with students with intellectual disabilities (N=7) aged 13 to 21 years old. All sessions of the music program were recorded, allowing for behavioural data coding of on-task behaviours. We conducted two separate simple linear regressions to assess if a significant change in on-task behaviours was seen throughout the music program within each activity (percussions and warm-up). Regression models revealed that there was no change in on-task behaviours over time in both the musical activity and non-musical activity (ps > .05). Further, we conducted a homogeneity of regression assumption test which was not violated, thus revealing that the slope coefficients between both conditions were not significantly different (ps > .05). This suggested that on-task behaviours did not change over time within both activities and that the frequency of on-task behaviours were also not different when comparing the musical activity to the non-musical activity. Although our study did not yield significant results, we discuss the benefits of student engagement and suggest that group-based music programs could be implemented in the current adapted educational curriculum for students with special needs (e.g. autistic students or students with intellectual disabilities), which is lacking arts education. In contrast to individual instruction, group-based music programs can benefit a greater population by increasing accessibility to music-based interventions.

Authors

• Alexa Servant, McGill University
  Presenting Author

• Mira Kaedbey

• Marie de la Sablonnière, Université de Montréal

• Hadas Dahary, McGill University

• Samantha Wong

• Marc Lanovaz

• Eve-Marie Quintin, McGill University