A study on the effects of Music Therapy Program on the Expressive Language Ability of Mentally Retarded Students in Elementary School

• Main Authors: Lan-Ying Chai, 柴蘭英
• Other Authors: Jung-Chao Hung
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2003
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/82094164870485470843

碩士 === 臺中師範學院 === 特殊教育與輔助科技研究所 === 92 === A study on the effects of Music Therapy Program on the Expressive Language Ability of Mentally Retarded Students in Elementary School Abstract The main purpose of this study is to explore the effects of music therapy program on the expressive language ability of mentally retarded students in elementary school. The single-subject, multiple probe across subjects approach was adopted, with music therapy program designed by researcher as the independent variables and the expressive language ability as dependent variables. The expressive language ability is analyzed through the following indicators：mean length of utterance-words (MLUW), mean length of utterance-characters (MLUC), the total number of words (TNW), the total number of characters (TNC)。 The study subjects were three students with severe mental retardation ages between 10-12。The language production was collected during baseline, intervention, and maintenance phases. During the intervention, each student took twelve sessions of Music Therapy. Visual analysis and time series C statistics were used to evaluate the effects of music therapy on the subjects in terms of the four language develop indicators. The effects of other observational data, as well as the social validity of the interview data were also analyzed. The results of the study are as follows: 1.The number of mean length of utterance-words (MLUW) of the tested subjects increased significantly. 2.The number of mean length of utterance-words (MLUW) of the tested subjects maintained during the maintenance phase. 3.The number of mean length of utterance-characters (MLUC) of the tested subjects increased significantly. 4.The number of mean length of utterance-characters (MLUC) of the tested subjects maintained during the maintenance phase. 5.The number of total number of words (TNW) of the tested subjects increased significantly. 6.The number of total number of words (TNW) of the tested subjects maintained during the maintenance phase. 7.The number of total number of characters (TNC) of the tested subjects increased significantly. 8.The number of total number of characters (TNC) of the tested subjects maintained during the maintenance phase. 9.Teachers confirmed that music therapy program could improve the expressive language ability of the children with severe mental retardation.