The Effects Of Background Music Rhythm And Noise On A Sustained Attention Task In Adults With Williams Syndrome PDF Download

The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of background music and contingent music on the off-task behaviors of 25 adults with mental retardation. Two vocational groups were selected for the study based on the similarities of demographic information of the clients within the groups. A pre-test was implemented prior to the study to determine off-task behavior and music preference. Subjects acted as their own control and were exposed to two conditions over the course of four weeks. Condition A was the baseline background music condition. Condition B was the contingent background music condition. Data was taken by two observers who used an observational checklist to measure the behaviors of the subjects. Inter-observer reliability was 62% for the data collected by the observers. A One-way Analysis of Variance indicated a significant difference in the off-task behaviors between the contingent and continuous background music conditions where the contingent background music condition had the lower amounts of off-task behavior.