Mid-South Music Therapy Services

 A: Music therapy benefits children in special education by providing them with a non-verbal, creative outlet for expression. Since musical activities require motor, social/emotional, cognitive, and communication skills, the child's needs and strengths in each domain can be assessed, and treatment plans developed, in order to address them all.

 A: Since music therapy is a related service under IDEA, it can be added to a child's IEP IF it is shown that a child performs at a consistently higher level in music therapy. The child must be assessed by a board-certified music therapist. The music therapist will decide if the child is a good candidate for music therapy, and will design a treatment plan and goals and objectives for the child, which includes how often the child is seen for music therapy.

 A: Let's say we have a young child who is on the Autism Spectrum. He has limited expressive communication, and his social skills lag far behind those of his typically-developing peers. In his music therapy assessment, he communicated successfully only 50% of the time; the other trials were met with tantrumming and frustration.He was only able to tolerate being with another person for 8 minutes before he had reached maximum tolerance. Sample goals for a child like this would be: To Increase Expressive Communication, and To Increase Social Skills.  The objectives for these goals might be worded like this: Communication: "Using Total Communication {sign language, PECs/devices, and/or spoken words} , (child's name) will express his needs and desires in music therapy 75% of all trials, by the end of the IEP year."

 Social: "(Child's name) will tolerate 1 peer in music therapy for 15 minutes once a week by the end of the IEP year."

 A: In music therapy, as in other therapies, a treatment plan is devised after a comprehensive assessment of the child. Music ACTIVITIES are then created around the child's abilities, designed to provide both challenge and success. Let's say that  the hypothetical child above was found to be able to keep a steady beat, to sing on pitch, and even to clearly enunciate a few words clearly in song. The music therapist will create social and communication activities that can be embedded in favorite songs or rhythm activities, so that his strengths are also nurtured alone with his need areas.For reporting purposes, baseline data is collected at the beginning of treatment, and progress notes are written after each session. Formal reports are written (monthly, quarterly, etc.) as dictated by the school or school system, and are based on a compilation of the data collected at each session.

A: Yes. In fact, it is a very effective tool in a multidisciplinary approach. Music therapy works very well in conjunction with Occupational Therapy, Physical Therapy, Communication Therapy, even Psychotherapy, because it addresses the same issues as the others-- but in Music therapy, obviously, music is the primary tool of treatment.  

 A: Music therapy can be carried out either way-- or both ways. It depends solely on the needs of the client. Some people benefit from the more intensive 1:1 attention while others make more progress in groups, because of the highly social aspect of group work. Still others may receive a combination of group and 1:1 therapy. Music therapy can be tailored to a child's specific needs.

 A: No. While it is strongly encouraged that children with special needs be included in general music classes at school, it cannot be called music therapy. Music class is exactly that-- Music EDUCATION. It is not a therapeutic service, and therefore, cannot be used as Music Therapy on an Individual Education Plan. Only degreed, board-certified Music Therapists are able to provide music therapy services on a child's IEP.