Musicoterapia improvisacional musicocentrada e crianças com autismo: relações entre desenvolvimento musical, ganhos terapêuticos e a teoria da musicalidade comunicativa

Abstract

This article addresses interfaces between Music Therapy, musical development, and Communicative Musicality, aiming to investigate the musical development of children with autism and their relationship with therapeutic gains in Music-centered Improvisational Music Therapy. For that, the musical development of 25 children with autism at the beginning and end of the Music Therapy treatment was evaluated through DEMUCA Scale (FREIRE et al., 2019), and was correlated with the therapeutic gains mensured through the scales ATEC, CGAS, and CGI (FREIRE, 2014). The results showed a higher level of musical development after treatment and positive correlations of musical development with improvements mainly in language/communication. Among the discussions raised, the relevance of the theory of Communicative Musicality was highlighted in order to understand the affective musical exchanges between therapist and patient that can lead to the expansion of communication and the musical development of the patient. We conclude that, due to the proximity of Music Therapy to Communicative Musicality, it is possible to point out connections between therapeutic gains and musical development of children with autism treated in Music-centered Improvisational Music Therapy.