The Effect of Inclusive Musical Theater Based Intervention for Individuals with Neurodevelopmental Disabilities

This research investigates the efficacy of an inclusive musical theater-based intervention for varying neurodevelopmental disabilities in socioemotional, cognitive, and physical ways. To investigate this, a two-day workshop was held simulating musical theater activities with 11 participants with varying neurodevelopmental disabilities and 10 volunteers who were paired in a one-to-one ratio. For both days, the volunteers were asked to observe specific developmental skills and rate the participants' usage of these skills at different points of the workshop. The workshop, which was fully recorded, was also observed by video analyzers who were tasked to score the entire group's usage of the developmental skills at different given activities. The results share that on an individual level the skill of memory had the highest average change, while on a group level all developmental skills had shown positive change by the last activity, group performance, and showed that different activities highlighted different developmental skills. Given different limitations, the research was able to signify the musical theater as an effective intervention for practicing different developmental skills.