The purpose of this study was to investigate which of the two conditions would allow a child with severe motor and intellectual disability to relax and play an instrument during music therapy based on heart rate variability: "Along with a song and piano accompaniment, the child touches a tree chime assisted by a caregiver with her left hand" or "the child moves her left hand approximately 5 mm to play an electronic instrument, Cymis(Cyber Musical Instrument with Score), when the caregiver has the child hold a switch of Cymis in her left hand and sings with piano accompaniment.The client’s heart rate variability during music therapy was longitudinally measured and analyzed seven times over a period of 11 months, suggesting that the degree of relaxation was higher when the electronic instrument Cymis was used. The results suggest that the children's heart rate variability may differ depending on the musical instrument used, and that the analysis of heart rate variability may provide clues for providing educational care while valuing the children's individuality.

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This study aimed to overview of practical researches on interventions for people with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), their caregivers, and their supporters published in Japanese since 2010. Of the 4,171 Japanese-language articles that corresponded to the keyword search, 148 articles were selected according to the selection criteria defined from the viewpoint of effectiveness verification. As a result, we found that: (1)the most common targets of intervention were "the child/person with ASD" followed by "the child/person with ASD and the caregiver"; (2) the most targeted ages were infancy and school age; and (3) The behavioral approach is the most widely used intervention method, and while it has achieved a certain level of intervention effectiveness, the results are not uniform in some cases. Future issues include (1) increasing the number of intervention studies in adolescence and adulthood, (2) conducting studies with control and waiting groups, and (3) the need for multifaceted evaluation and medium- to long-term follow-up.

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We retrospectively examined the vicissitude of the situation of patients with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in our hospital’s pediatric outpatient psychological and developmental department from 1994 to 2021 based on their medical records. The percentage with Pervasive Developmental Disorders (PDD) or ASD among first-visit patients was 73.4 % in 2012 and decreased to 54.6 % in 2021. Although the most common chief complaint among patients with ASD at the first visit was “developmental or speech and language delay” in 1994, cases with this complaint decreased over time in 2012 and 2021. These secular vicissitudes were considered to be due to the changes in the social recognition and support system for developmental disorders. The needs of patients seeking outpatient services for developmental disorders have changed over time. Considering the increase in the number of patients and facilities offering outpatient services, it is necessary to reexamine the role of university hospitals in the future.

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