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Introduction
Music therapy in intellectual disabilities
Music therapy has been used within the local intellectual disabilities service for over 20 years. Music therapy is a psychological therapy which uses mainly musical improvisation to build a relationship between therapist and client. Although it can help people of all ages and abilities, it is often used for people with limited verbal communication (British Association for Music Therapy). As such, it is an excellent psychotherapeutic modality for supporting the emotional wellbeing of people with intellectual disabilities who may have difficulties expressing their thoughts, feelings, experiences, desires and wishes verbally. The non-verbal nature of music therapy provides individuals who may find it difficult to engage in any other verbal, or non-verbal, therapy (such a counselling, cognitive behavioural therapy or art therapy) with a therapeutic process through which they can express themselves.
Despite the valuable practice-based evidence (Sackett et al., 1996) for the use of music therapy in adults with intellectual disabilities, there appears to be a lack of empirical research in the area. This is highlighted by TessaWatson (2007) in her seminal book on music therapy for people with learning disabilities. Much of the available research base is centred on clinical case studies presented by a number of authors to document the development and success of using music therapy with clients with intellectual disabilities, or work with children with or without intellectual disabilities and autism. Case studies have suggested the benefits of music therapy include the development of positive relationships; the reduction of behaviours which challenge services; improvement in quality of life; and improvement in mental health conditions such as eating disorders, depression and anxiety (Nicholls, 2002; Fillingham, 2007; see Watson, 2007 for a review). Other work has been published which discusses the value of group formats to offer music therapy to people with intellectual disabilities (e.g. Cho, 2013; Richards and Hind, 2002). A recent study by Pavlicevic et al. (2014) explored the opinions of family members and professionals. They used a focus group design to explore the value of improvisation-centred music therapy for young adults with severe learning disabilities. Their qualitative research showed that long-term music therapy provides experiences of high self-esteem and confidence, with feelings of shared acceptance and success, and the opportunity to develop...