Music is a stimulus that can be applied to the environment to encourage and increase both attentiveness and responsiveness in people with profound disabilities. The process and product of music experiencing and performing have the potential to bring about therapeutic change for individuals with profound disabilities. Above all, music is effective with this population because of its inherent power to draw attention. Music attracts attention, and thus can draw people in, because of its novelty. Music is a change in the environment and the dishabituation it brings may be cause for conscious attention.
Music also holds attention because it causes arousal of the autonomic nervous system.
Music is also very appropriate for this population because it is so easily accessible. Music reaches each individual at his or her level of intellectual and physical functioning. Aside from cognitive processing, participation in music activities can vary according to physical and cognitive abilities. Participation based on the abilities of an individual, even when very minimal, is still valid music participation and can still contribute to both the process and product of music performance. A knowledgeable therapist can easily adapt participation to the individual s abilities, and therefore can structure situations so that they lead to success.