Music-Enhanced Emotion Identification of Facial Emotions in Autistic Spectrum Disorder Children: A Pilot EEG Study

Abstract

The Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is characterized by a difficulty in expressing and interpreting others’ emotions. In particular, people with ASD have difficulties when interpreting emotions encoded in facial expressions. In the past, music interventions have been shown to improve autistic individuals’ emotional and social skills. The present study describes a pilot study to explore the usefulness of music as a tool for improving autistic children’s emotion recognition in facial expressions. Twenty-five children (mean age = 8.8 y, SD = 1.24) with high-functioning ASD and normal hearing participated in the study consisting of four weekly sessions of 15 min each. Fifteen participants were randomly divided into an experimental group (N = 14) and a control group (N = 11). During each session, participants in the experimental group were exposed to images of facial expressions for four emotions (happy, sad, angry, and fear). Images were shown in three conditions, with the second condition consisting of music of congruent emotion with the shown images. Participants in the control group were shown only images in all three conditions. For six participants in each group, EEG data were acquired during the sessions, and instantaneous emotional responses (arousal and valence values) were extracted from the EEG data. Inter- and intra-session emotion identification improvement was measured in terms of verbal response accuracy, and EEG response differences were analyzed. A comparison of the verbal responses of the experimental group pre- and post-intervention showed a significant (p = 0.001) average improvement in emotion identification accuracy responses of 26% (SD = 3.4). Furthermore, emotional responses of the experimental group at the end of the study showed a higher correlation with the emotional stimuli being presented, compared with their emotional responses at the beginning of the study. No similar verbal responses improvement or EEG-stimuli correlation was found in the control group. These results seem to indicate that music can be used to improve both emotion identification in facial expressions and emotion induction through facial stimuli in children with high-functioning ASD.

Effects of different types of visual music on the prefrontal hemodynamics of children with autism spectrum disorder based on functional near-infrared spectroscopy

“…Thompson et al reported that ASD children have difficulty looking at people, particularly their faces, but when they watched videos of someone singing or reading a story, they would look more at the person if they were singing and if the story was familiar to them; thus, using songs and familiar stories may be a way to help children with autism to naturally engage with others ( 25 ). Similar studies have shown that music can be used to improve emotion recognition in facial expressions and emotion induction through facial stimulation in children with high functioning ASDs ( 26 ).…”

Interventions through Art Therapy and Music Therapy in Autism Spectrum Disorder, ADHD, Language Disorders, and Learning Disabilities in Pediatric-Aged Children: A Systematic Review

“…In contrast, of the 54 music therapy studies, 85% (46) focus on children with ASD [ 13 , 23 , 26 , 27 , 29 , 33 , 34 , 35 , 39 , 40 , 41 , 42 , 43 , 44 , 46 , 47 , 48 , 52 , 53 , 54 , 58 , 60 , 66 , 68 , 69 , 70 , 71 , 72 , 73 , 74 , 75 , 76 , 79 , 83 , 84 , 85 , 88 , 89 , 90 , 91 , 92 , 93 , 94 ], 11.3% (6) focus on children with ADHD [ 22 , 41 , 42 , 52 , 72 , 82 , 94 ], and 3.7% (2) focus on children with language disorders [ 14 , 15 , 16 , 17 , 18 , ...…”

“…In contrast, of the 54 music therapy studies, 85% (46) focus on children with ASD [13,23,26,27,29,[33][34][35][39][40][41][42][43][44][46][47][48][52][53][54]58,60,66,[68][69][70][71][72][73][74][75][76]79,[83][84][85][88][89][90][91][92][93][94], 11.3% (6) focus on children with ADHD [22,41,42,52,72,82,94], and 3.7% (2) focus on children with language disorders .…”

“…In mixed studies, questionnaires and observational records were employed as instruments in six studies (35.29%), while assessment tools and scales were used in ten studies (58.82%), and questionnaires and medical tests were used in conjunction with questionnaires in one study (5.8%) as shown in Table 3. Conners children's behavior questionnaire Chen et al [30]; Zhu [31] OAT (Art Therapy Observation) and EAT-A (Therapist Evaluation) Schweizer et al [32]; Schweizer et al [22] OAT-A (Child Observation) Schweizer et al [22] Electroencephalography (EEG) Ramirez-Melendez et al [33]; Lagasse et al [23]; Kostilainen et al [34]; Yum et al [29] Combined Raven's test Zhu [31]; Rabeyron et al [35] Childhood Autism Rating Scale (CARS) Yum et al [29]; Al-Ayadhi et al [36]; Koo and Thomas [37] 5-HT Park et al [38] ADOS and Assessment of the Quality of Relationship (AQR) Mössler et al [27] AMMT (auditory-motor mapping training) Chenausky et al [39] Laban Movement Analysis (LMA) Moo and Ho [40] Autism Behavior Checklist (ABC) Yurteri and Akdemir [41] Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule (ADOS-2) and Bayley Scales of Infant and Toddler Development (BSID) Zaro et al [42] BRIEF, CSBQ, and Repetitive Behavior Scale-Revised (RBS-R) Schweizer et al [22] Social Communication Questionnaire (SCQ) and the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) Aithal et al [43] DUACS (Voices Together) Schmid et al [44] Conners Scale and the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST) Liu et al [45] Vineland Social Maturity Scale (VSMS) Minaabad and Lomar [46] Parent-Child Movement Scale (PCMS) Moo and Ho [40] Functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS) Shi et al [47] FEATS (Formal Elements Art Therapy Scale) y PPAT (Person Picking an Apple from a Tree Test) Rajabpour et al [48] Impresión Clínica Global (CGI) Rabeyron et al [35] Korean ADHD Rating Scale (K-ADHDDS) and House-Tree-Person Drawing Test (HTP) Lee ...…”

The Importance of Music for Emotion Processing in Children with Autistic Spectrum Disorder

“…Most of the research on using music as an intervention for ASD has centred in communication behaviours [25], but other more recent approaches have been proposed. For instance, Ramirez et al [26] explore the potential usefulness of music as a tool for improving ASD children's emotion recognition in facial expressions. By exposing children with ASD to facial expressions with different emotions with and without emotion-matching background music, emotion identification improvement was measured both in terms of verbal response accuracy (perceived emotion), and brain (EEG) activity response (induced emotion).…”