MUSICTHERAPYTODAy, Volume 14, No. 1, 2018
The authors respected the management policy of the facility and determined not to assign a specific child care aid to each participant. If each participant had the same child care aid throughout the study, however, the data, especially the number of prompts taken to analyze the change in their independence, would have been more validate.
In addition, the sample size was limited because there were not many children using the services more than three days a week regularly at the time of study. Recruiting more participants at the day treatment facility or other educational support centers is needed for future research to increase research validity as well as examine if the findings could be generalized.
The result of this study implies music as a prompt could be effective to encourage initiating a task whereas music as a reward could be effective to completing a task. Furthermore, it suggests how and when musical interventions should be implemented would be different depending on individual learning needs. Since rewards are commonly used in practical educational settings as well as prompts, additional research is needed to explore more strategies to implement music as a reward so that educators, parents, and other specialists working for children with special needs can have a larger repertoire of alternative teaching strategies. It is highly recommended future research considers use of recorded music so that those who are not music therapists or who do not have an advance music educational background can incorporate the strategy without special training. References
Cote, C. A., Thompson, R. H., & McKerchar, P. M. (2005). The effects of antecedent inter-
48
ventions and extinction on toddlers’ compliance during transitions. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 38, 235-238. De Mers, C. L., Tincani, M., Van Norman, R. K., & Higgins, K. (2009). Effects of music therapy on young children’s challenging behaviors: A case study. Music Therapy Perspectives, 27(2), 88-96. Gadberry, D. L. (2011). The effect of music on transitions and spoken redirections in a preschool classroom (Doctoral dissertation). Retrieved from ProQuest Central; ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global. (Order No. 3458216) Hanley, G. P., Tiger, J. H., & Ingvarsson, E. T. (2009). Influencing preschoolers’ free-play activity preferences: An evaluation of satiation and embedded reinforcement. Hoffmann, K. F., Huff, J. D., Patterson, A. S., & Nietfeld, J. L. (2009). Elementary teachers’ use and perception of rewards in the classroom. Teaching and Teacher Education, 25, 843-849. Hume, K., Sreckovic, M., Snyder, K., & Carnahan, C. R. (2014). Smooth transitions: Helping students with autism spectrum disorder navigate the school day. Teaching Exceptional Children, 47, 35-45. Katagiri, J. (2009). The effect of background music and song texts on the emotional understanding of children with autism. Journal of Music Therapy, 46(1), 15-31. Kern, P., Wakeford, L., & Aldridge, D. (2007). Improving the performance of a young child with autism during self-care tasks using embedded song interventions: A case study. Music Therapy Perspectives, 25(1), 43-51. Kern, P., Wolery, M., & Aldridge, D. (2007). Use of songs to promote independence in morning greeting routines for young children with autism. Journal of Autism & Developmental Disorders, 37, 1264-1271. Kurita, H., Osada, H., Shimizu, K., & Tachimori, H. (2003). Validity of DQ as an estimate of