**Corrected forum question.***

[Anonymous]

Reviewing what you heard today, describe a moment in your practice when you saw a child in one of the developmental stages. Post your story to the board.

[Caroline Gillott]

I’m struggling with this post because I have to think in retrospect AND I do not currently work with children that fall within the category of “early childhood” which I guess is birth-5. So, I’m going to try to apply this post to my adolescent and adult clients that I treat. I find it mind blowing that the autism spectrum can vary so much. I have seen my clients exhibit ALL stages one week and maybe just the awareness stage the next–regardless of age. I have teenager who lives in a world of dysregulation. Bless his heart but music sometimes just doesn’t get through the barrier. Today it started to and I saw elements of control in him. He was moving from slow to fast purposefully within the relevant context of the song. He matched beat for significant periods of time and he repeated rhythms accurately. I often think about him and wish he can some day get to the point where he isn’t using all his energy to spin down the hall or to jump from room to room. It’s got to be exhausting. It was so exciting to see control in him today because it’s so rare. He initially came to the session extremely overstimulated–jumping up and down, spinning round and round. By the end of the session he was sittin’ at the drum jammmin’. Life is good.

[Kate St. John]

I haven’t worked in early intervention for a few years but I do have a 5 year old client who had an anoxic brain injury that caused global delays. He seems to be in between the trust and independence stages. In the trust stage, he recognizes changes in the music, can locate sounds from far away, makes some verbal approximations, and makes a lot of choices about whether or not he wants to explore instruments with his hands or mouth. In the independence stage, he tries to grasp instruments, makes a lot of choices about which instrument or activity he wants, shows clear preferences for his favorite instruments and songs, and especially loooooves surprises in the music!

[Nancy Bair]

I worked with a 6 year old boy, who at the time was developmentally about 18 months. I could see him through the awareness phase, by stopping whatever he was doing as soon as he heard my guitar and rush over to me. He would immediately start to strum my guitar with me. This demonstrates trust. I could also see him exert many of the independence outcomes as well by choosing his own instrument, imitating me, and creating his own songs/vocalizations. LOTS of repetitions as the “wheels on the bus” song was his MOST favorite and he always chose the little people bus I had that I used for a visual prop. I would also say that some days he had more of these outcomes than others. I can also see that perhaps one of my therapy goals was far-reaching considering he hadn’t mastered the control stage of development yet, which would be necessary for me to be able to successfully achieve my goal.

[Katie Maurer]

My internship case study subject was a 3-year-old boy with autism and developmental delays. I would say he was mainly in the stage of trust. He was almost completely non-verbal and didn’t sing at all. He very much preferred familiar interventions and preferred playing the guitar or piano to hand-held instruments. He could physically play the hand held instruments, but would only shake or strike for a short time before throwing the instrument down. He would rarely add the last word of a phrase when silence was left for him, but it was never really a sung word, just spoken.

[Cassandra Mulcahy]

I work with a 22-year old man with developmental disabilities, who is predominantly in the trust category. His vocalizations are almost always descending. His movements rhythmic, but not in time to the music (except when I change to follow him.) He definitely thrives off of reciprocal communication, and seems to be validated by having his vocalizations sung back to him. Although he has severe tactile aversion, through the use of predictable experiences, he has been able to tolerate playing simple instruments. Often he chooses not to play though. 🙂

On a chronologically appropriate note, I do enjoy watching my 3-4 year olds develop from independence to control. My little group of once maracca-mouthing tots can now choose their maraca by color, engage in call and response tunes, and pick up the words to a melody after a few repeats .

[Sarah jane Mason]

Trust…
I had a client that was 6 years old, on the spectrum, non-verbal but made vocalizations, had difficulty looking anyone in the eye for more than just a passing glance, but responded well to music interventions. His mother confirmed that his first reciprocal communication occurred in one of our sessions. We were doing “Old MacDonald” working on EEE-III-EEE-III-OOO, very long sounds. He seemed to enjoy the song as evidenced by his willingness to sit still for the 5 minute activity and 1-2 eye contacts for 1 second without prompt. I would do E-I-E-I and then pause for his O. Not only did he direct his attention to me, he responded totally on pitch. Because of a move cross country I wasn’t able to continue my work with this client. I wish I could see him now and how far he has come!

[Jennifer DeBedout]

I have a little boy that I has been in my music groups since he was 6 months old. He is now almost two. I have watched him go through the development stages while in the music groups. He is slowly moving into independence now but, as was described, he definitely heads back to mom and checks in. The rest of the group this boy is in for my current session are all in the independent stage so they are acting as good role models for this little one. I’ll note that the mom of the little boy moving into independence gets upset and flustered when her little guy doesn’t want to jump right over to grab an instrument or is shy to interact with a puppet. This class has given me language and a good review to reassure her that he is moving through appropriate developmental stages and the independence will come in time!

[Dany Orozco]

I’m not working with children right now, but I have young nephews and I do music with them sometimes. The youngest is in the trust stage, he locates the sounds coming from different instruments in different locations, makes some vocalizations, and seems to know when there is a change in the music.
It’s been really helpful to have small sessions with him and my older nephew who is 2 years old, it helps me see the different characteristics of the stages and it’s easier to remember them.

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