Effects of Three Music Therapy Interventions on the Verbal Expressions of Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Combined Single-Subject Design.
Singing alone gets preschoolers with autism to talk faster than fuller music setups.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Attar et al. (2022) compared three music setups for three-year-olds with autism. Each child tried singing-only, music-plus-singing, and just listening on different days.
The team timed how fast kids made any word sound after the adult spoke. They also watched for smiles and other happy signs.
What they found
Singing alone won. Kids answered with words faster than in the other two setups. They also showed more happy faces during singing.
Music-plus-singing came second. Listening-only came last for both speed and smiles.
How this fits with other research
Schertz et al. (2016) pooled many early-language studies and found the same thing: simple, adult-plus-child methods beat fancy mixed ones. Attar’s singing trial is one more brick in that wall.
Shams et al. (2025) used songs, stories, and rhymes in daily play and saw big vocabulary jumps. Attar narrows the field, showing it was the singing part that gave the quick vocal start.
Rojahn et al. (2012) looked at music to cut vocal stereotypy, not boost words. They also found high-preference songs worked best. Attar flips the coin: preferred singing boosts real words instead of just calming odd sounds.
Why it matters
If you run circle time or parent coaching, start with short singing turns. One adult, one child, simple melody, wait three seconds. No instruments or background track needed. You should see faster word attempts and more smiles right away.
Want CEUs on This Topic?
The ABA Clubhouse has 60+ free CEUs — live every Wednesday. Ethics, supervision & clinical topics.
Join Free →Open your next session with a five-second sung question, then wait silently—count to three before any prompt.
02At a glance
03Original abstract
The specific aims of this research study were to (a) examine the differential effect of three different music interventions, namely the interactive music playing therapy (“music and singing”), interaction music singing therapy (“singing”), and receptive music therapy (“listening”) studying the varying latency periods in the response time it took 3-year-old children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) to elicit the target word vocally; and (b) assess the index of happiness of children with ASD after the implementation of the three music interventions, which can, in turn, be used to influence their overall quality of life through this specific intervention. This study used a combined single-subject research design consisting of delayed multiple baseline across the participants and a multielement design to compare the effects of each music intervention technique targeting the child’s verbal response during playback of a practiced song. Findings demonstrated “singing” to be associated with the lowest latency compared to the other two interventions (“listening” and “singing and music”) across participants. Additionally, happiness levels varied from neutral to happy, signifying an overall positive experience during participation in the music applied behavior analysis (ABA) intervention.
Frontiers in Psychology, 2022 · doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2022.819473