Musical communication and intellectual disabilities : A study on social interaction through music playing among preverbal individuals

Abstract: Music and its effects on the brain has been discussed from many different angels. Everything from “The Mozart effect” that shows that listening to music can improve your brain’s performance, to several studies showing that playing an instrument creates plastic changes to the brain. When we listen to music, areas related to motor control and language are activated, and humans are using sound and music from a very early age to communicate wants and needs to their surroundings. Since music seems to have a positive effect on the human brain and a connection to human communication skills, would it then be possible to use music playing to enhance togetherness and communication among pre-verbal individuals? As a first step towards examining this, this paper will investigate how playing music together with others affect pre-verbal individuals’ initiatives to communication. A set of musical instruments were developed that assists the players by sounding good together no matter how you play them, by keeping the same tempo and staying in the same part of the song composition. This was to take away focus from the challenges of playing an instrument, and instead being able to enjoy the feeling of playing music together and also have room for connecting with the other persons in the group. The results showed that playing the instruments created several opportunities for social interaction, but that the interaction in most cases happened between the participant and one of the assistants rather than between the participants. Focusing on playing the instrument and at the same time notice your peers and their playing, takes some practice. By optimizing the setup of the playing sessions, and taking time to get comfortable with the instrument and the situation, the chance of this communicative connection happening is likely.