Abstract

Playing music activity in group was one kind of support therapies for autistic children. This activity could give occasion for autistic children to learn social interaction basic skills, included eye-contact ability, facial expression, greeting response, playing and working together with others. The purpose revealed how the role of playing music activity in group toward the improvement of their social interaction. Subjects were 6 - I2 aged boys, diagnosed by psychiatrists as autistic with characteristic: they had ability enough of verbal and motoric and obedient enough, they could be trained and could follow instruction, they avoided face to face with others, they wouldn't be angry if someone approach him. Method of sampling was incidental purposive sampling. Method of data collecting was observation and interview. The analysis data technique included statistical analysis with Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test, quantitative descriptive, and qualitative analysis. The result of statistical analysis show that the role of playing music activity in group toward the improvement of their social interaction is not quite significant. But the quantitative descriptive and qualitative analysis results show that there are improvement score of social interaction in each children. This condition show that actually the role of playing music activity in group toward the improvement of their social interaction couldn't be ignored.