Project team
Jonathan W Pool
Senior Research Fellow
Rebecca Atkinson
Business Manager/Researcher
Autism-CHIME is a nationwide randomised controlled trial (RCT) testing the effectiveness of improvisational music therapy in improving autistic children's social communication skills.
Music therapy is the clinical use of musical interventions to target improvement of mental and physical health in multiple domains, including social communication. Autistic children, who can have difficulties in social communication, have been shown to have a strong preference for music, which makes music therapy a promising intervention.
This trial, running in collaboration with the Autism Centre of Excellence, University of Cambridge, will be conducted with 240 autistic children in the UK aged 7-11. It will be an assessor-blind, pragmatic two-arm cluster RCT comparing the impact of adding improvisational music therapy to usual care alone for autistic children over a 12-week period. The full length of the project is 40 months, with an expected end date of July 2025.
The collaborators are committed to ensuring that autistic people receive the best possible support, and promoting wellbeing in autistic people. We will therefore work closely with our Patient and Public Involvement (PPI) group throughout the project to monitor participants' overall wellbeing as a result of improvements in social communication.
If this study confirms the value of music therapy for autistic children, we will discuss how this could be translated into recommended clinical practice with the Chair of the relevant NICE Guidelines.
If your school is interested in taking part, or you are a music therapist who could run sessions as part of this trial, contact [email protected]
Jaschke, A. C., Howlin, C., Pool, J., Greenberg, Y. D., Atkinson, R., Kovalova, A., ... & Baron-Cohen, S. (2024) 'Study protocol of a randomized control trial on the effectiveness of improvisational music therapy for autistic children', BMC Psychiatry, 24(1), pp. 1-12.
Pallas-Ferrer, I., Jaschke, A. C., Howlin, C., Pool, J., Greenberg, Y. D., Atkinson, R., Kovalova, A., Merriam, E., , Williams, S., Moore, C. , Hayden, K., Allison, C., Odell-Miller, H. and Baron-Cohen, S. (2024) 'A Randomised control trial on the effectiveness of improvisational music therapy for autistic children aged 7-11 [Autism-CHIME Trial]', poster presentation at the Music and Neuroscience Conference 2024, Helsinki, Finland.
Howlin, C., Allison, C., Odell-Miller, H., Greenberg, D. Pool, J. and Baron-Cohen, S. (2023) 'Evaluating the effectiveness of Music Therapy on autistic children’s social communication and wellbeing. [Autism-CHIME]', poster presentation at the 17th International Conference on Music Perception and Cognition and the 7th Conference of the Asia-Pacific Society for the Cognitive Sciences of Music, Tokyo, Japan.
Howlin, C., Allison, C., Pool, J., Greenberg, D., Odell-Miller, H. and Baron-Cohen, S. (2024) 'What are the cognitive factors that contribute to effective music therapy for autistic children aged 7 -11? Introducing a longitudinal randomised controlled trial', paper presentation at the 12th triennial conference of the European Society for the Cognitive Sciences of Music (ESCOM 12), York, UK.
Howlin, C., Allison, C., Odell-Miller, H., Greenberg, D. Pool, J., Jaschke, A. and Baron-Cohen, S. (2024) 'Designing the Autism-CHIME music therapy clinical trial: striking the balance between creative approaches, scientific rigour, and neuroinclusivity', paper presentation, Arts and Health Symposium, The International Association of Empirical Aesthetics, Palma, Mallorca, Spain.
Howlin, C. (2024) 'Designing the Autism-CHIME music therapy clinical trial: striking the balance between creative approaches, scientific rigour, and neuroinclusivity', paper presentation, Exploring Medical and Health Humanities in TCD, Long room hub, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland.
Baron-Cohen, S., Allison, C., Greenberg, Y. D. M., Pool, J., Jaschke, A., Odell-Miller, H. and Howlin, C., 'Autism - Children's Improvisational Music Therapy Evaluation (CHIME)', ClinicalTrials.gov ID: NCT06016621.
Senior Research Fellow
Business Manager/Researcher