Objectives: This work aims to underline the relevance of the motivation to change which can be offered to the autistic children from the rhythmical and musical relationship in the context of the habilitation work.
Methods: At the Centre for Pervasive Disturbances of Development videos will be recorded during the individual setting of music therapy which will be then subject to microanalysis by expert personnel.
Results: Recent publications on mirror neurons and studies by the Infant Research highlight the difficulties experienced by autistic children when they are asked to make imitative processes or in understanding the intentions of people who interact with them. Studies investigating the dynamics of proto-conversations and music play with children clarify how music, rhythmic as well as prosodic elements may improve the expressive and emotional quality of the inter-subject relationship. Repetition in music is never repeating the same thing, it organizes variable and predictable dynamic moments. Heart beat and breathing are essentially a continuous repetition and variation: human beings base their existence biologically and psychologically on musical and rhythmical elements. Repetition and variation cause directionality in the perception of time, present time acquires a meaning because it is generated by a past which has just passed, instantly remembered, and which anticipates the forthcoming future. Repetitions and variations, considered from the musical point of view, invite to play with time and sounds, remembering and anticipating: the pleasantness of coming back, the surprise of the unknown, the feeling that the future cannot be known and that the same moment can repeat itself or melt with another one. Therefore rhythm and repetition create moments of tension and relaxation connected to moments of waiting or frustration for un unfulfilled desire - which provoke an extremely intense and dynamic mental.
Conclusions: The music improvisation, the sonorous stimuli and vocal play may contribute to the understanding of the intentions and the shared significance.