Description du projet
Une intervention orthophonique assistée par la musique pour les enfants autistes
Près d’un tiers des enfants autistes ne développent pas de langage oral fonctionnel et conservent une expression peu verbale même après des années d’interventions orthophoniques et éducatives. Le projet MAP, financé par l’UE, entend créer des programmes assistés par la musique (PAM) et tester si leur utilisation facilitée et individualisée permettrait d’améliorer le langage oral des enfants autistes qui ne parlent pas ou peu. Cette méthode comprendra une procédure de formation structurée afin d’enseigner le langage par le biais de chansons et d’activités interactives dans un cadre naturaliste. L’efficacité des PAM sera évaluée par un essai contrôlé et randomisé de faisabilité, en les comparant au traitement habituel. Une application sera également développée pour que les parents puissent jouer les chansons des PAM à la maison. Le projet pourrait apporter de nouvelles améliorations dans l’acquisition du langage des personnes autistes.
Objectif
Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterised by atypical social communication and interaction, and repetitive and restricted behaviours, activities and interests, affecting around 1% of the general population worldwide. It is estimated that about 30% of children with ASD do not develop functional speech, and remain non-verbal or minimally verbal even after years of speech, language and educational interventions. Although a wide range of programmes have been developed for treating language impairments in ASD, none has been effective in eliciting functional speech in ASD children.
Building on the research findings of the CAASD project, this proof of concept grant aims to develop a set of multifaceted, individualized, easily implemented, music-assisted intervention programmes (MAP) to increase spoken language ability in 2-4-year-old, nonverbal or minimally verbal children with ASD. Specifically, we will develop a structured training protocol, delivered through naturalistic strategies and interactive activities, to teach language to ASD children through songs and music making. Over a period of 12 weeks, randomised controlled trials will be run on two groups of ASD children, randomly assigned to the treatment (undertaking music-assisted language interventions) or the control group (receiving traditional speech and language therapy). The efficacy of MAP will be assessed through the learning of 36 target words that relate to naturalistic, everyday activities that the children spontaneously engage in. Ultimately, an app will be built and developed for parents or carers of children with ASD to learn the songs and implement the associated activities wherever there is a need.
Addressing the urgent need for language interventions in ASD, MAP has the potential to open the neural pathways to language in the autistic brain and to create genuine and lasting outcomes to resolve the socio-neuro-constructionist issues in ASD.
Champ scientifique
Programme(s)
Régime de financement
ERC-POC - Proof of Concept GrantInstitution d’accueil
RG6 6AH Reading
Royaume-Uni