Winter 2009

Effects of music on crying behavior of infants and toddlers during physical therapy intervention
Rahlin M, Stefani J.

We investigated the effect of music on the amount of time that infants and toddlers cried during physical therapy sessions. We used 9 multiple single subjects with an A-B-A withdrawal design. While the response to music varied among the participants, 6 of the 9 children cried less when music was used during therapy. The study provides some evidence to suggest that therapists working with infants and toddlers may want to consider using music as a calming technique. More research is needed to investigate the effects of music on other aspects of infant and toddler behavior during therapy.

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