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.

[Meredith Pizzi]

[Gina Greeson]

During my internship, I helped co-lead an intergenerational group. The children were ages 0-5. There was one child in particular who exhibited behavior in the independence stage. The song was “A Ram Sam Sam!” He was very quiet for most of the group, but when we sang this song, he laughed, followed the hand gestures and laughed when song got faster and stopped. It also slowed down and when it slowed down and we said “A….. and stop he stopped, and even would sing “ram sam” a few times.

[Lauren Klimek]

In my practice, I have seen children in all developmental stages of music but one particular moment would have to be when one child with severe autism was in the level of control. This young girl was able to imitate rhythm and musical movements within the song structure and although she is non-verbal she was able to fill in call and response with matched pitch to the melody. She continues to be able to follow musical cues and structure but also creates her own syncopated rhythms within the musical framework making a conscious decision to do so. She has a favorite song where she visibly becomes excited and vocalizes before it begins, she then is able to follow all of the musical movements while using a colorful scarf. As I’m typing this and reflecting, it also seems as if she is moving toward the responsibility stage as well. She is doing so well and thoroughly enjoys herself and the music!

[Dina Breaux]

A few weeks ago I shared some music at my granddaughter’s daycare, with all 4 of the children ranging in age from 11 to 14 months of age. The youngest child, at the trust level, sat quietly in the caregiver’s lap for the first few songs and watched the other children sing along and move. According to the caregiver, she still exhibited stranger anxiety, taking a long time to warm up to new situations. When I added shakers to the third song, she began to be more animated, reaching for a shaker and putting it in her mouth. A hand drum was introduced in the next song and her eyes brightened. She smiled and squealed with delight as she played along with the music. By the end of our music time, she was vocalizing, moving her body and attempting to strike the drum with a mallet. It was very rewarding to see her warm up to the experience in such a short amount of time!

[Joanna Calahan]

One little guy I work with in my preschool group waivers between trust and independence. We have been working on vocalizations, attending skills, following directions, and motivation. One instance that stands out to me happened a few weeks ago when we were tracing and singing a song about a square. The phrase “this is a square” is repeated throughout a piggy back song based off “Three Blind Mice.” I often sing the entire song first, then encourage the clients to fill in the word “square” at the end. After singing this song 2-3 times, and allowing time for clients to count and trace the shape this little boy continued to look away from the visual, refused to trace it, and moved throughout the room. I decided to sing the song one more time to see what would happen. I sang all of the song except for the last “square” in which he independently looked at the square and clearly identified the shape without any additional prompting from me. I instantly exploded with praise as he said the word all by himself, slowly moving into independent stage!

[Kristina Rio]

It was so great reading your experiences with some of these developmental stages! It is so important to have examples of responses in each stage in your mind as you learn the music so you can then look for those responses throughout the different ages and developmental levels when/if you begin groups of your own.

[Megan Calabro]

Hi, all. I have a couple of moments that I wanted to share… First, just because I think it’s such an awesome example, I wanted to share a quick personal moment with regards to Awareness. When I was pregnant with my daughter, I frequently used the Winnie the Pooh theme song as a lullaby with the kids at the hospital. When my daughter was jus t over a week old, my in-laws came over and gave us a mobile that played part of the theme song. My daughter, after a brief pause, turned her head towards the mobile, and smiled this brilliant smile!! It was beautiful to behold.

I also wanted to share an experience that I just had yesterday with one of my hospital kiddos. This little one is not quite 2, and just has multiple, multiple things going on – physical delays, speech/language delay, visual deficits, and then not feeling too well to boot. Well, when I went to see this little one, they were initially pretty gosh darn irritable. However, once I started softly singing and providing some rhythmic input, this munchkin immediately calmed down and the pm vocalized this sound that resembled “huh?”, basically sliding up a perfect 4th. I imitated, the child vocalized again (same thing), I responded with a descending interval, and then this munchkin began to belly laugh! It was just the coolest thing. I initially was working with this child more at the awareness stage, but I think that was a clear indication of moving into the Trust stage. =)

[Anonymous]

Thank you all for sharing! Don’t forget that Beth’s book is a great resource that was created to regularly look over when as you look for developmental stages and music in your work.

[Author]

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