ABSTRACT

The study investigated the influence of Music Therapy on social skills development among children with intellectual disabilities in Benin City, Edo state. In order to provide direction for the study, two research questions were raised and two hypotheses were formulated.

            The design for this study is a survey. The population comprises of all primary pupils with intellectual disabilities in all primary schools within Benin City, Edo State. The sample of the study was sixty children with special needs from randomly selected primary school. The purposive sampling technique was used for the sampling. The instruments used for data collection was a structured questionnaire titled "Questionnaire on the influence of Music Therapy on social skills development among children with intellectual disabilities” (QIMTSSDID). The instruments were validated by test experts. For reliability of the instruments, the instruments were administered on twenty pupils and the data collected was subjected to Cronbach Alpha statistics, the coefficients of 0.770 and 0.688 were obtained for Music Therapy and social skills development respectively. The data collected were anaysed using descriptive statistics such as mean and standard deviation to answer the research Questions while Pearson Product Moment Correlation Statistics analysis were used to test the hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance.

            The results revealed that people with intellectual disability are generally regarded as individuals that have been diagnosed to have intellectual and adaptive behavior impairments which can be managed through music therapy.  The study also revealed that there is no significant difference in the relationship of music therapy on social skills development among children with intellectual disabilities in Benin City. Based on the findings, the researcher recommended that teachers and care giver should be exposed to trainings on how to identify children that lacks social skills.