Review What You Heard

[Anonymous]

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

[Rachel Sedmak]

When I was completing the clinical portion of NICU training, the infant I worked with demonstrated the awareness stage of musical development. When I picked him up, he was quiet and awake. I held him in my arms and as I began to sing a quiet lullaby, he turned his head toward me and started to coo. He snuggled in as I continued to sing. As I introduced the massage protocol, the infant showed a finger splay, meaning that the stimulation was too much at that time, so I stopped for a few seconds and went back to just singing.

[Amy Berggren]

One of the babies in my mom/infant class demonstrated being in the awareness stage of music development. Before starting music (when I was talking with the moms in the group) she was focused on her mom, on her clothes, or the floor. As soon as I started playing the guitar and singing, she looked up at me and did not look away the entire time I was singing. When her mom took over singing, she turned her head toward her mom instead.

[Erika Svolos]

Thank you for sharing you experiences.

[Favor Chujor]

I’m currently observing in the Sprouting Melodies classes at RMTS and last week, I observed an infant being in the awareness stage! Throughout one of the songs, he would vocalize “OOH!” immediately after the MT-BC sang “OOH!”. In these vocalizations, he also matched pitch and kicked his feet to the tempo of the song.

[Mikelia Wallace]

I currently work with a child who fits into the development level of awareness. She can locate the source of sound, she will repeat a “giggle” sound consistently throughout the session, she can briefly grasp instruments and she tolerates being rocked and moved to music for short periods of time. I’ve found with her that when she looks away and I stop the music, she will look back to me and I will begin making music again, when we do this she is much more engaged. What amazes me about these developmental levels is how they are so highly individualized. I work with Children with DD, and this client is an adolescent.

[Sophia Paravalos]

I have definitely seen kiddos in sprouting melodies exhibiting some of the musical characteristics in the control level such as dancing spontaneously to the music and or imitating learned movements shown by the therapist. One thing I particularly love about sprouting melodies classes is that kiddos will slowly start to grow throughout the semester and you can see the vertical AND horizontal growth within these levels as they become more comfortable.

[Erik Hylan]

In my integrated pre-school groups, I have observed some of the kiddos displaying characteristics of control as they are beginning to communicate in order to make choices. Some of the musical characteristics I have witnessed are imitating learned movements to music, finding joy in banging and pounding, Spontaneous dancing to music, and using varied vocal dynamics. They also are making choices for which instruments to play, dynamics, tempo, and how to move musically. Some kiddos are even moving into the developmental level of responsibility with following directions, independent singing, maintaining a steady beat, and imitating simple rhythms. It is really neat to see these two levels co-exist and how that influences the session.

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