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Case Study Autism, Music Therapy Case study from music therapist Sandy Matheson, based in Crosshill, Fife, on a

session taken place on 8th March 2012.

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Skoog in Music Therapy Tom is a gentle, dreamy ve-year-old boy, with an unconrmeddiagnosis of ASD/LD. He is not verbal, but occasionally vocalises.His mum noticed that Tom responds positively to musical stimuliof various kinds, and consequently she referred him for music

therapy. I undertook four assessment sessions with Tom in January 2012. It was immediately clear that Tom is a highly tactilechild; he explores and investigates his environment by touchingand holding objects (and if not discouraged by popping them inhis mouth)! For this reason, I decided that the Skoog might bean appropriate instrument to draw him into a musicalrelationship.

Tom was intrigued by this strange, colourful object, and delightedby the sounds it made. His rst response to it was to try to eatit, but It did not take him long to understand the relationshipbetween the action of touching various parts of it and thedifferent sounds that could be achieved. It proved to be one of

the instruments on which we could enjoy a creativerelationship, turn-taking and playing duets. Mostly, hisrelationships were with the instruments themselves rather thanwith the therapist; inasmuch as he involved me, he tended to useme as a means to an end rather than using the instrument as ameans of communication. (This is what one would expect tond in the earliest stage of therapy with a client with ASD).Therefore it was signicant that the Skoog drew Tom into amusical relationship. It also held his interest for a relatively long

time; Tom’s interactions with instruments tended to be verybrief, but our Skoog activity lasted around ve minutes. Were I

to continue working with Tom, I would continue to use theSkoog as a way of hooking him into a relationship.

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