A survey of perceptions and attitudes of parents and caregivers toward music as a therapeutic intervention used to enhance total development of young children with special needs

This study addressed the perceptions of parents toward music as a therapeutic intervention used to enhance the total development of young children with special needs. There appears to be an overwhelming amount of literature documenting how powerful music can be in laying a foundation that supports the total development of a young child. The author administered a questionnaire to 34 parents of young children with special needs who were enrolled in a local early intervention program. The questionnaire asked the parents to rate and rank order specific Music therapy goals used in the program according to how they saw music therapy benefit their child. Results of the survey showed no statistically significant differences among scales. A Spearman's Rank order Correlation Coefficient yielded an interesting inverse relationship. In general, favorable responses seemed to indicate that parents and caregivers recognize the benefit of incorporating music in their child's intervention services.