Describe a moment in your practice

[Meredith Pizzi]

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.

[Elana Dietz-Weinstein]

While reading the information on the developmental stages, I thought of a 4 –year old non-verbal girl that I work with individually and in a group. Up until recently she was in the Independence level, and although she vocalized and engaged in instrument play, it was brief, had no tonal center, and she rarely initiated. Over the past 2 months she has moved into the Control level, and she sings the melodic contour of entire songs, as well as will sing a few words (“itsy,” or “twinkle” or some of the alphabet, for example). The songs are completely recognizable and she initiates the singing of them often, as well as spontaneously vocalizes. She now initiates choices and will independently select instruments or animal puppets, and communicates her preference for pink. She has also begun to dance spontaneously to music and will follow certain movements. It’s amazing how much she has developed from the beginning of the year, when she would basically watch and participate with hand over hand assistance!

[Kimberly Rodgers-Melnick]

How cool to see these changes right in your sessions with her! Thanks for sharing. ???? —This was supposed to be a reply to Elana… I guess it doesn’t let me reply to individual posts?– and after reading all the posts, thank you all for sharing, it’s really helpful to have insight into the work and experiences of others and I agree with Erika, sounds like you are doing wonderful work–glad to have the opportunity to collaborate through this training!

[Alison Barrington]

Again, all the information is clear and I have appreciated the chance to revisit the developmental stages. I am particularly remember a 6 year old girl (with cerebral palsy and autism) who I worked with in a school environment. I was working within the Awareness level which may seem initially not to fit with her chronological age. However, she was referred because she spent most of the time crying or screaming and, I believe this had interfered with her ability to develop an ‘awakening of the senses, of physical and sensual being.’ The musical intervention I used was use of pitch in response to how she lifted her arms and legs so that she became more aware of her limbs. I also introduced a variety of instruments to see which sounds most interested her – and I also discovered sounds which distressed her. When she was distressed I used soothing music to calm her down and enable her to tolerate the setting. By singing songs I believe she became more aware of her own vocalizations.
Another significant issue for her was trust – which links with the next developmental level. I believe that, due to her autism, she found the busy and noise school environment was overwhelming for her. So I sang a lot of lullaby style songs, and a lot of predictable song structures.
Overall there was a lot of musical repetition in each session and she did calm down enormously.

[Carolyn Keenan]

I worked with a 3 year old child who has autism and watched him transition from the trust to the independence level. It was really exciting to see him become more communicative, begin to demonstrate preference for instrument choices, carry over between individual and group sessions, and develop some changes in vocal inflection.

[Jen Hinton]

I am working now in Music Enrichment at an early learning center, providing services to children ages 12 months to Pre-K(4-5yrs). I have also been enjoying this review as I think it’s been at least 13 years since I really studied this theory…wish I had dug into it before having kids! So, I wanted to share something from each stage that stood out to me. Awareness: I do not serve infants but think of my own kids moving their heads toward sounds of familiar vocal timbre. Another preference from this stage that stood out to me was the preference for higher pitch and how we tend to speak to infants…we do so many things that work without intention or fully realizing the reasoning behind them! I appreciate so many of you sharing the examples of these stages that stand out to you in clients who have diagnoses that take them down a different path. I worked for 11 years in long-term care and it is interesting to think of these levels in those terms as we work to help each individual attain the highest level they are able to in the moment they are in presently. When I thought initially about horizontal movement, I thought in terms of growth, but it seems reasonable that these levels could move in the opposite direction based on barriers that occur later in life? The Trust Level: I think of my 12-month old classes where many children explore by putting the maraca in their mouths to explore. Independence: In my Preschool class we do a lot with STOP and the sudden stop! of this is really engaging to them and many approximate it by imitating my change in body language, approximating the word, exhaling, or putting their hand out to show it non-verbally. Control: My older Pre-K classes display the ability to follow call and response, including songs in other languages. Something else from this stage that stood out to me was the imitation of lyrics first before pitch and rhythm…maybe one of the reasons that we (I) use speaking the words first before adding the melody! (We don’t always know why what we do works!) Responsibility: We do drum circles where one student will get to be the leader, demonstrating the rhythm and the group reflects it back. this peer to peer cooperation reminded me of this developmental outcome. Thank you for all of your moments.

[Anonymous]

What wonderful work you are all doing and it is great to see how you getting some refreshers, as well as seeing your work from a developmental lens.

[Kimberly Rodgers-Melnick]

There is a 4 month old baby in one of my family classes who is in the awareness stage. She shows awareness of the music by turning her attention towards or away from the circle and making simple movements and vocalizations, can grasp some instruments but is more into mouthing them than playing them. There are a lot of 1.5 year olds in my classes, many in the Trust stage, they choose how to explore an instrument, they can grasp and shake, there is some movement synchrony and they do love those musical suprises and often respond with laughing or wanting to do it again and again. There is a 2 year old who I believe is somewhere between independence and control- probably closer to control. He is getting close to matching vocals on pitch, he can repeat rhythms fairly accurately, he definitely can choose which instrument to play, he does a lot of spontaneous dancing and LOVES to pound and bang. ☺ There is also a 3 year old in one of my classes who is in the control stage, he brings full songs to me sometimes that he’s learned at daycare or from his grandparents and wants to sing them for me, he has functional communication and understands turn-taking and often is a leader in cleaning up instruments.

[Claudia Eliaza]

For me one of the most amazing stages in watching a child develop trust for me as his teacher. I am thinking specifically about a little boy that I worked with. He was about 2 years old or so, and often times he would come to music and just stare at me the entire time. Anytime I came over to give instruments to him and his mother, he’d hold onto her and try to shield himself from me. He seemed to be mesmerized by the music and the other kids in the class, but didn’t yet feel safe to fully interact with everyone. One day, while doing a large movement piece he found himself separated from his mom and roamed about the class. He was building his trust. A few weeks later he made his way over next to my guitar during a snuggle song. In reading about these developmental stages, I am now noticing that all the while he was building trust and becoming more independent.

[Laura Pruett]

Reading through these levels, I had to remind myself not to look at it too academically. I found myself imagining a child “graduating” from one level to the next, and never returning to a previous level. Then I remembered one client I see, a 9 year old with several developmental, physical, and mental delays. He frequently goes back and forth between the awareness stage, trust stage, and occasionally the independence stage. When he is in an awareness stage, he looks towards the source of music. When he loses interest, he looks away, his eyes wandering around the room. When the music changes, he returns his attention to the music. He sometimes vocalizes along to lively music on an “eee” sound. His response to unexpected changes depends on his mood; sometimes it is a crying sound, and sometimes it is laughter, which is more of a response from someone in the independence stage. He sometimes grunts or hums in short bursts to more sedative music, but it rarely matches a pitch in the music. After reading Jen’s response above, I realized I also often speak to him in a higher pitched voice. He’s not an infant, but his level of functioning is infancy.

And I would like to echo the sentiment a few of you have already expressed – it is awesome to read about your moments! Music is wonderful, music therapy is powerful, and music therapists are amazing. =)

[Mabel Ortiz]

Although I have yet to work as a music therapist in early childhood, I can definitely relate to experiencing the Awareness developmental level with the infants I was responsible for when working as a caregiver at a preschool. I sang specific songs (slower tempo) to “announce” it was nap time, and to help them fall asleep. When I wanted to play with them, or during story time, I sometimes utilized more up-beat songs, that matched the activity that was occurring. As time went on, the babies got used to this “prompting.”

[Author]

Posts