Review What You Heard

[Julie Palmieri]

Reviewing what you heard today, describe a moment in your practice when you saw a child in one of the developmental levels.

[Erika (TeamRH)]

If you have not had the opportunity to work with young children, you can consider how these levels appear with older individuals in various stages of life. Or, again if you know anyone with young children it may be helpful to consider where you’ve engaged with a young child and describe those moments.

[Melissa Neitzel]

I was able to work with an infant from awareness stage to trust stage. In awareness stage, she eye searched for me whenever I began to sing. She followed me to both the left and right side, eventually turning her head to find me. When she was in trust stage, I had her sitting on my lap with instruments placed in front of her. She independently reached for a plastic buffalo drum, resting her hands on the drumhead as I tapped.

[Christine Wick]

Thanks for sharing, Melissa! I haven’t had the opportunity to work with young infants yet. The youngest I’ve worked with is about 18-20 months so I’m looking forward to having this developmental framework to readily apply when any opportunities come up in the future.

[Maggie Johnson]

I too have not had the opportunity to work with young infants. Thank you for sharing your experience!

[Maggie Johnson]

I have much more experience with adults clinically so I will mostly rely on those experiences in my responses. I had a client for many years who passed away at the age of 36 in the last year. She mostly presented in the awareness stage in our sessions. She preferred vocal music and we often improvised together in response to her breath and pitch. A lot of the responses I looked to her for were regarding attending to the sound source, it was a wonderful thing to see her eye brows move with interest or her head turn! I learned to become attuned to changes in breath—so I appreciate that reminder in the video— vocalizing pitch, trying to understand her vocal expression. She had a severe seizure disorder and in the span time I knew her she was often dealing with a lot of unmanaged pain that was very difficult to diagnose due to her not being able to communicate her experience other than through deep mournful groans and contracting her limbs into herself. I often sang circle songs/chants, but also incorporated guitar melody/bass, hand under hand kalimba, tambourine etc. I also learned from her to take seriously the need for no music at times and to advocate for plenty of quiet time in her daily routine. She had amazing parents who carefully curated a vast collection of music, as music was her whole world (labeling the CDs as upbeat vs relaxing—very much aligned with the awareness stage).

[Leslie Aldrich]

This sounds like such a beautiful experience you had with her. The reminder for silence and quiet really stood out to me as well, and sounds like was very important for this client.

[Erika (TeamRH)]

Thank you for sharing this experience with all of us. Elizabeth is in the process of adding older ages to her work as many participants have shared how much this training has informed their work with ages older than early childhood.

[Maggie Johnson]

Yes! I was able to take their CMTE course at a WRAMTA conference called “Musicking Across the Lifespan” which I return to my notes often for group work, and I was able to hear Elizabeth’s moving presentation about her mother, Honor, at another conference. It feels like I’ve come full circle to finally take all the Raising Harmony courses after those two presentations! I look forward to future opportunities!

[Leslie Aldrich]

I spent some time with my 10-week-old niece this past week and I had gotten her some of those soft wrist rattles. It was really cute to see her much more aware of those rattles; making them move more purposefully and turning toward them and engaging with them. Definitely in her awareness level.

[Katelyn Caruso]

I currently work with adults, but it was so helpful to use this framework to see what stage they are at developmentally in relation to the music throughout my sessions this week. I had a session where a 75 year old developmentally disabled woman weekly, and I can see how she is in different stages each week from awareness to independence, depending on the week depending on her health, mood, and energy level. She often will explore instruments in her own way, in the stage of trust as she looks through my basket of instrument, and often chooses one to hold or hands it to me to play. This week she played along with me briefly on a shaker and reached out towards my hand any time I snapped my fingers.

When I think about this in the context of children I know, my 5 year old niece is very much in the control phase. She wants to be making all of the decisions and determining how everyone else should be in her play, and can now take turns and initiate songs and play.

[Erika (TeamRH)]

Thank you for sharing about your work with older adults and young children. As I mentioned above Elizabeth intends for this work to extend beyond the early childhood years.

[Christine Wick]

I had the opportunity to work with a 2-year old last week and observed some responses within the developmental level of trust. He made purposeful pitched vocalizations within a high and low arousal alternating song structure – bounces with dad alternated with slower strides around the room (being held in dad’s arms). During the first bounces, he vocalized on short “ahs” within the rhythmic song structure and was delighted when dad repeated back to him each time. He vocalized on “ah” each faster rhythm bounce break after this and it was so great to see him attending to bonding with dad in these moments.

[Maggie Johnson]

Thank you for recounting this clinical moment! It’s great to learn how you used variation in the music as I learn the characteristics between trust and independence in particular, and seeing examples of fostering trust through forms like ABAB with high and low arousal sections.

[Kimberly Werner]

I’ve had a large influx of 4-6 year olds admitted with me recently, and often find that they teeter between independence, control, and responsibility levels at this age group. I also find that, sometimes, the level of familiarity with a song/intervention/instrument/provider in the room influences the ways that these developmental stages present themselves. Using familiar USA-based childhood songs (The Wheels on the Bus, Old MacDonald), with English-speaking children who have spent time in schools in the USA, and/or whose parents were raised in the USA has sometimes yielded a very different result than using the same songs with children from different countries, or who may not have the same level of English literacy.

I was recently working with a 4 y/o child, born in the USA to a recently arrived Spanish-speaking family. When I sang to them in English, there seemed to be more hesitation in engagement (both vocally and instrumentally), less interest in exploring sounds, and a more flat affect. When I ended the session with a Spanish-language song from their native culture, of which I knew was familiar to them (confirmed via parent), the child freely used their voice, had a softer facial/body expression, and was more interactive. This was unfortunately disrupted when a new provider entered the room to introduce themselves, which provoked an anxiety response in the child, however we were able to use the song after the provider left to reintroduce safety, stability, and familiarity into the stressful environment.

[Katelyn Caruso]

Hi Kimberly, it sounds like you are making great observations in your sessions! Your story about the Spanish language speaking child reminded me of my experience while teaching! I taught in a bilingual English/Spanish school, and many of the Spanish speaking kindergartners didn’t have a lot of experience speaking English. When I taught them songs in English they would be reserved and timid, but when learning songs in Spanish they were confident, silly, and let their personalities shine through! Language is such an important piece of someone’s identity and I love that you are able to bring in songs that are familiar to a child’s culture. I wonder if there are any Sprouting Melodies grads with a class in a language other than English out there!

[Kimberly Werner]

It makes sense that they’d connect more freely with a song that’s in their native language, where they understand the words, and maybe have heard it in other environments! I wish I was fluent enough in Spanish to be able to offer a Spanish language class/section. I could get through the music part, but without the availability of a translator (or a translator phone line), my conversations with families would definitely fall short.

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