I had a lady come up to me today after my choir concert and share that she had a young daughter who has autism. She asked me if I had ever heard of a certain school in the area that specializes in students with developmental disabilities. I told her about my choir program for the older students. (I conducted a pilot program creating a choir with three classrooms, which serve older students.) She smiled and said her daughter loved music and wondered how she could get music therapy. I shared some information with her on how to contact the company I work for and see if her daughter could receive…
The author of this study noted that there is past research that supports the idea that a responsive parenting style and synchronous parent-child interactions have a positive effect on child development in language, cognitive, and social-emotional areas. Responsive parenting is defined as “the ways parents respond to their children’s needs and signals with sensitivity, warmth, and acceptance.” The parent’s ability to accurately recognize, understand, and interpret their child’s communication through behavior or verbal communication is one of the key factors involved in this successful type of parent-child relationship. However, interactions between parents and children with disabilities or developmental delays are often more challenging because of symptoms or characteristics associated with…
Have you ever been able to tell something was wrong with someone just by watching his or her gait? Your gait is your stride, how long a step you take, plus whether you go from heel to toe and whether your toes stay straight or tend to go in or out. You also look at the tempo or speed at which they walk, and the rhythm created in their step. These characteristics are just what a group of researchers studied with two groups of older adolescents and young adults. One group, classified as “typically developing” and the other group, classified as on the Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) with severe communication…
As a Music Therapist and a Music Educator, I find myself drawn to articles written by music educators concerning students with disabilities in their classroom. Although music therapy is a related service under IDEA, many school districts do not employ music therapists to work with their special needs students. Often music educators are left to grapple with the how to teach these students with varying levels of training and experience. Recently, Joseph Michael Abramo shared his research on “Gifted Students with Disabilities: ‘Twice Exceptionality’ in the Music Classroom” in the June 2015 edition of the Music Educator’s Journal published by the National Association for Music Education (NAfME). In this…
Almost all babies love music. Past studies with music and newborns have shown that recorded music and parents singing can help increase weight gain and oxygen saturation. But can live music have a similar effect on premature newborns who are struggling to grow and thrive? The study “The Effects of Music Therapy on Vital Signs, Feeding, and Sleep in Premature Infants” looks into this effect and conducted a study with 272 premature infants born at less than 32 weeks old who had serious infections or respiratory distress. These infants received three music therapy sessions a week for two weeks. The music therapists involved consulted with the infant’s parents to…
This article outlines a case study performed by researchers to find the effect of using embedded song interventions compared to verbal instruction of a 5-year-old boy diagnosed with Autism. The researchers noted that in our culture independence is highly valued by young individuals as well as for adults who provide care for them. For children with Autism, independent self-care can be inhibited by a number of factors such as motivation and meaning to the individual, habits and performance patterns, communication deficits, sensory processing, and variability of performance. These factors can lead to adults parenting or working with children with Autism maintaining their caregiver role…
Functional MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) and DTI (Diffusion Tensor Imaging) can give us pictures of what happens to children’s brains when comparing speech vs. song activity. Researchers Lai, Pantazatos, Schneider and Hirsch (2012) looked at the neural systems for speech and song in children with autism compared to typically developing children. The results showed that “functional systems that process speech and song were more effectively engaged for song than speech” (p. 961). Knowing that music activates more areas of the brain than speech, this finding is not surprising. The researchers looked specifically at areas of the brain that process speech which is the Broca’s area of the brain. Individuals…
Music therapy is often thought of as taking place at a facility—in a patient’s room at a hospital, in a common room at a day facility, in an office, in a school, etc. The session is client-focused and centers around the client’s or clients’ needs. What may be less known is that music therapy often occurs in clients’ homes. When working with young children in particular, sessions are often family-focused, or centered around family collaboration and participation. This approach began in the 1980s by American researchers and was soon adopted by early childhood intervention (ECI) practitioners in Australia. The Australian Early Child Intervention Association’s Code of Ethics instructs ECI practitioners…
Do you have a favorite song or playlist you like to listen to when you are feeling stressed? Or ever found yourself completely mellowed out by a new song you hear on the radio? This may be because music can be a great way to relax and let go of stressors during the day. But how simple can a song be in order to have an effect on anxiety? In “Steady Beat and State Anxiety” Anita L. Gadberry looks into the effect of music on state anxiety (or anxiety that occurs in the present moment and is not related to a diagnosis). Gadberry looked at the effect of a simple…
Cancer affects many people and their families. Almost everyone knows, or has someone in their family, who has battled cancer. Ever wonder if music therapy can help ease oncology treatment? Previous studies indicated that music therapy (specifically live, patient preferred listening) may improve quality of life, decrease anxiety, and decrease blood pressure. Therapists involved in the studies also noticed that active participation (singing along or requesting/choosing songs) further decreased stress in oncology patients. Some music therapy studies focused on guided imagery and music to decrease anxiety and nausea in cancer patients. However, despite this research no one has addressed how long the effects of music therapy last or how music…