Effects of Music Therapy on Students with Disabilities: A Meta-Analysis

Abstract

One of the important factors to consider in special education is individualization. The utility of music therapy in special education has grown due to its flexibility of designing interventions for individuals with diverse needs. Despite of the fact, prior literature was conducted mostly on the basis of medical perspectives to estimate effects of music therapy. Therefore, the goal of this study was to examine the effects of music therapy interventions through educational lens and to establish evidence-based music therapy intervention for students with disabilities. The study employed a meta-analysis which is proved to be the most effective method being used to build evidence-based practice. Meta-analysis allows not only to synthesize the effect sizes of accumulated data, but also to draw substantive implications for its research field. Two meta-analytic methodologies were used to gain comprehensive understanding of music therapy intervention studies with different study designs. In this meta-analysis, a total number of forty studies with 158 effect sizes were analyzed. Twenty-seven experimental design studies with 133 effect sizes were analyzed with multilevel approach, whereas thirteen single-subject studies were analyzed with fifty-five effect sizes that were computed by using IRD(Improvement Rate Difference) index. The results of this study were provided for each meta-analytic approach, as well as the comprehensive interpretations. Results from meta-analysis indicated the mean effect of music therapy interventions for students with disabilities. Futhermore, predictor variables among student-related, intervention-related, implementation-related, and dependent variables that have influences on computed effect sizes were detected. Finally, limitations of this study and implications for further research were discussed.