Malloch Stephen, Shoemark Helen, Črnčec Rudi, Newnham Carol, Paul Campbell, Prior Margot, Coward Sean, Burnham Denis
MARCS Auditory Laboratories, University of Western Sydney.
Murdoch Childrens Research Institute and The Royal Children's Hospital, Melbourne.
Infant Ment Health J. 2012 Jul;33(4):386-399. doi: 10.1002/imhj.21346. Epub 2012 Jun 15.
Infants seek contingent, companionable interactions with others. Infants in a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU), while receiving care that optimizes their chances of survival, often do not have the kind of interactions that are optimal for their social development. Live music therapy (MT) with infants is an intervention that aims for contingent, social interaction between therapist and infant. This study, with a limited numbers of infants, examined the effectiveness of an MT intervention in the NICU at The Royal Children's Hospital Melbourne. Two groups of late pre-term and full-term infants were recruited to the study; one was given MT and the other was not. A healthy group of infants not given MT served as an additional control. The effect of MT was indexed using two measures reflecting infant social engagement: the Neurobehavioral Assessment of the Preterm Infant (NAPI) and the Alarm Distress Baby Scale (ADBB). Results suggest that the MT intervention used at The Royal Children's Hospital Melbourne supports infants' neurobehavioral development. In particular, hospitalized infants who received MT were better able to maintain self-regulation during social interaction with an adult, were less irritable and cried less, and were more positive in their response to adult handling, when compared with infants who did not receive the intervention. These are important prerequisites for social interaction and development. Further and larger scale research using MT with this population is indicated.
婴儿寻求与他人进行有回应的、融洽的互动。新生儿重症监护病房（NICU）中的婴儿在接受旨在优化其生存几率的护理时，往往缺乏对其社交发展最为有利的那种互动。对婴儿进行现场音乐治疗（MT）是一种旨在实现治疗师与婴儿之间有回应的社交互动的干预措施。这项针对数量有限的婴儿开展的研究，考察了墨尔本皇家儿童医院新生儿重症监护病房音乐治疗干预措施的效果。两组晚期早产儿和足月儿被招募到该研究中；一组接受音乐治疗，另一组不接受。一组未接受音乐治疗的健康婴儿作为额外对照。音乐治疗的效果通过反映婴儿社交参与度的两项指标来衡量：早产儿神经行为评估（NAPI）和警报苦恼婴儿量表（ADBB）。结果表明，墨尔本皇家儿童医院所采用的音乐治疗干预措施有助于婴儿的神经行为发育。特别是，与未接受该干预措施的婴儿相比，接受音乐治疗的住院婴儿在与成人进行社交互动时更能保持自我调节，更不易烦躁且哭闹更少，对成人护理的反应也更积极。这些都是社交互动与发展的重要前提条件。因此有必要针对这一人群开展进一步的大规模音乐治疗研究。
