Jason didn’t look up from his iPad when I entered his room. His grandmother, working on a crossword puzzle, shrugged and said I could try to get Jason’s attention if I wanted, but she didn’t think it would work. “He really loves that iPad,” she said with a sigh.
In the chaotic and unfamiliar hospital setting, Jason had retreated into his sanctuary of technology, refusing to engage with the world around him.
Jason, an 11 year old with autism spectrum disorder, was admitted to thehospital while recovering from a common childhood illness. The child life specialist had referred him for music therapy in the hopes that it would bring him out of his inner world and help him cope effectively with the strange hospital environment.
I sat at the foot of his bed, placed a small hand drum behind me, and pulled up the Soundrop app on my iPad.
“Ping!” went the drop.
Jason didn’t bat an eye, didn’t look up from his game. I swiped my finger across the screen dramatically, changing the sound. “Ping ping!” Jason’s eyes flicked briefly to my screen.
I did it again, then took Jason’s hand and swiped it.
“Pingy-ping, pingy-pong!”
Jason was now hooked on my iPad. I gently changed the positions of our iPads, placing mine over his while he continued to draw lines and divert the drops, now drawn in to the ordered chaos on my screen.
Bringing someone out of their isolation is one of the goals of music therapy.
After several minutes, knowing that children like Jason can quickly become fixated on one thing and shut out everyone and everything else around them, I asked Jason if I could try something new, then switched over to the Monkey Drum app. I showed him how he could make the monkey imitate his sound. He quickly made up a beat which included silence at the end of the pattern, raptly watching the monkey frantically beat the drums. I pulled out the small hand drum I’d brought into his room and encouraged Jason to try tapping on it.
Jason’s eyes looked up from the iPad and briefly met my gaze. I took his hand to encourage him to play his rhythm on my drum, then he took over while I moved the iPad out of sight. He played the drum; I complimented his rhythms on a shaker.
For a moment, we met in the music.
Meanwhile, his grandmother was watching, amazed that Jason had engaged with anything other than his own personal technology in this foreign environment.
Although the interaction between us didn’t last long, it was clear that music, and in this case, drumming, provided a way for Jason to engage with another person outside of the isolation that often comes with an autism spectrum disorder.
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