Music Therapy in US Corrections: Philosophy, Practice, and Protocols of Music Therapists Working with Incarcerated People in the US Kayla Stubblefield, MT-BC When you think of settings in which music therapists work, the first facility that comes to mind may be a school, a hospital, or a nursing home. Oftentimes, people are surprised when hearing that music therapy can benefit those in correctional facilities. The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world, having 1 out of 5 people incarcerated in the United States. Approximately 7 million people who are serving parole or probation are under oversight of the U.S. correctional system, with roughly 2.3 million people…
When I tell people that I am a music therapist, I am usually asked if I work with children in schools or older adults in nursing homes. Rarely do people assume that I provide music therapy services for adolescents. An article published in Voices: A World Forum for Music Therapy aimed to research and report how music therapists from around the world are clinically trained to work with adolescents as well as how they are currently working with this population. The researching music therapists at the helm of this report sought out to answer these questions and review the current literature available for music therapy and adolescents. The music therapy…
The benefits of music therapy for people living with dementia have been studied time and time again. Music therapy can facilitate mood elevation and relaxation, maintain motor skills, promote increased socialization and engagement, and provide opportunities for reminiscence. Reminiscence is defined as recalling memories from your past, either actively or passively. Music therapists who work with this population have always used a participant’s preferred music to evoke memories and emotions that may arise from hearing a beloved song. Music therapists can use a variety of interventions with individuals with dementia to work on the goal of reminiscence, including song discussion, therapeutic singing, and therapeutic songwriting. Music therapy groups in an…
Once again, if you have been following my blogs on the Central Ohio Music Therapy, LLC website or our Facebook page, you are familiar with my dual role as a music therapist and music educator. Having to conduct music therapy sessions virtually (and usually with only 1 – 4 patients at the most), I was fascinated to learn what challenges music educators had with trying to teach virtually and have a full classroom! This article looks at what music educators learned during the COVID-19 virtual learning school year in 2020 – 2021. Draper’s article was written just prior to the vaccine rollout and discusses the importance of getting students with…
Mental health has become an increasingly bigger problem facing children and adolescents in society. Emotional, behavioral, social, and cognitive problems face these age groups today. Adolescents show a particular vulnerability with anxiety related disorders as they go through various changes in this age group. Popular treatment and approaches include medications and psychotherapy, with an increasingly popular and recognized intervention being music therapy. This research study aimed to explore the efficacy of music therapy in clinical practice for children and adolescents with mental health problems. Using a randomized control trial design, participants ages 8-16 and sets of parents from various mental health service care facilities were split into two groups.…
If you have been following my blogs on the Central Ohio Music Therapy, LLC website or our Facebook page, you are familiar with my dual role as a music therapist and music educator. I know I have written about music educators working with students with disabilities in the past, but this study fascinated me in many ways as having worked as an elementary music educator in the past. I was fortunate to have my music therapy background to reference when working with students in my school who had an Individual Education Plan (IEP) or some other accommodation to booster the student’s success. Grimsby took it upon herself to interview three…
There is an abundance of published research about the field of neonatal intensive care (NICU) music therapy. Multiple articles have been reviewed right here, on the COMT blog. In May, I attended the clinical fieldwork portion of the National Institute for Infant & Child Medical Music Therapy at Norton Women’s and Children’s Hospital in Louisville, Kentucky. Over the course of two days, I got hands-on experience implementing music therapy interventions on the most fragile humans, premature infants or infants born with Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome (when a baby is withdrawing from drug exposure in the womb). Months before these clinical hours in the hospital, I attended the lecture portion of the…
Autoethnography is a form of research that is first-person based, studying and making meaning out of the personal experience of the author. The author of this study examines her own music therapy clinical work with children on the autism spectrum, asking herself “How do I see you?” and “What does that mean for us?” Throughout her time as a student and in the early days of her profession, Devlin could easily recite the textbook definition of autism, or outline goals and objectives for working with an autistic child: increase social skills, improve communication deficits, increase attention and focus, and grasp academic concepts. “My understanding of autism was that it was…
Adolescence is a unique time when music is most important in our lives. If music itself is so important and effective with teens, what further benefits could music therapy provide for these individuals? Shuman, et al, looked into how music therapy in groups can affect the mood of adolescents in a psychiatric hospital setting, (Shuman, 2016). In this study, children and adolescents, ages 12 to 21 years participated in at least one music therapy group and completed a standard mood assessment before and after the group. This measure included questions such as, “how do you feel right now?” and “how did you feel during group?” Teens on a psychiatric unit…
Music therapists have been working in special education settings for decades. In fact, music therapy is now well known to be effective in addressing a variety of goals for children with disabilities – including social, communication, behavioral and physical domains. As music therapy is observed to be effective with this population, some exploration has been made into helping teachers utilize music more effectively in their classrooms with the help of a music therapist. A 2016 study examined the effects of increased collaboration between special education teachers and a music therapist at a specific school for children with Autism Spectrum Disorder. The music therapist spent time planning with participating teachers and…