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Hi Liz,
Great insights into how we can reframe the unhelpful language from early intervention! I am neurodivergent and have a neruodivergent child myself. I found that helping my families to understand development from the neurodivergent perspective as opposed to the neurotypical scales have been life changing for parents. They found the information helpful in advocating for more appropriate goals and accommodations in educational and recreational settings. I also found that sharing music development and how meaningful that development is in supporting the whole child helps parents see that a person’s value is more than the “skills” they have mastered.
ModeratorLooking forward to everyone’s responses. Please remember to return at various time, each week, so that you can read and respond to your fellow participants. This will give you more depth with the training materials.
ModeratorHello everyone. My name is Erika Svolos. I am the online moderator for this training. I live in New Jersey with my husband, my 8.5 yo daughter, and our cat Moose. It is a joy to be a part of this fantastic program and to join in your Sprouting Melodies journey. I am a graduate of Marywood University, currently, a graduate student at Montclair State University, and have been a music therapist in New Jersey for over 22 years. Over that time, I have worked in a variety of settings including in-patient child/adolescent psychiatry, a private clinic for autism, a large urban public school system, private practice, a private special education high school for individuals with emotional and behavioral disorders, and a private Orthodox Jewish special education school. In August 2013 I started my own business/private practice; Music Therapy Services of New Jersey, LLC. I completed the April 2013 Sprouting Melodies online training and it was a wonderful addition to my practice. I began offering Sprouting Melodies classes in February of 2014 and I’ve truly enjoyed working with my SM families. I have been moderating the Sprouting Melodies Online Training for the past 8.5 years.
I will be assisting with any questions and/or technical difficulties.
You will be receiving an email with information about the online forum technology and my contact information. If you do not receive the email, please contact me at erika.svolosmtbc@gmail.com.I am looking forward to getting to know each of you over the next ten weeks!
ModeratorIt has been a pleasure to have all of you in this course. I wish you all the best and hope to hear about your journeys sometime.
ModeratorHi Lynn,
Both Meredith and I have offered something called a Test Drive where families could try the first class and if they did not want to sign up they were not charged for the class. I certainly think inviting others in is great, but like any educational or therapeutic setting you would want permission from the families / participants for that to happen.
You can set up with a call with Meredith to talk more about this. She has done quite a lot of different things in her business similar to what you have mentioned.
I know that Meredith also offers a “big kids” Sprouting Melodies class for elementary aged children so it definitely crosses over into that age group.
ModeratorHi Jee,
I found in my first few weeks of running Sprouting Melodies Classes it took some time to get a handle of all the facets of the groups. I write down a lot ahead of time to remind myself, but as time went on I became more comfortable and confident. I found facilitating sessions helped me to integrate everything from this training. I kept Elizabeth’s book by my side for every class and processing every class.
I wish you all the best as you move on to working in EC! It’s been a pleasure to have you in this co-hort 🙂
ModeratorI brought a lot of what I learned from this course to my parenting. I usually “practiced” the music with my daughter before bringing them to my Sprouting Melodies classes. I think having children can really bring a lot to facilitating EC groups. Though it’s not necessary to be effective, it does inform the work you do. I think being a parent can also help you understand the unique challenges that comes with being a parent and the challenging messages sent by to parents by society.
ModeratorI am so glad this will enhance the wonderful work you are already doing. So nice to hear how you are in your dream job! I found this information translated wonderfully to the 1:1 work I did with disabled children in private practice as well as the work I did working in schools. I even find it to inform my work when I am teaching private lessons. Best of luck with your work moving forward.
ModeratorSome things that were helpful in my groups included engaging more active children in being in leadership roles. Many times this was older children. Giving them jobs like handing out instruments. I also utilized clinical music improvisation in every song that invited each child to make have an opportunity to direct how we engaged with the music. Some examples included children choosing the movement the group would do, how loud or soft the music would play, or how fast or slow we play the music. The choices are endless. As Jee shared engaging parents and modeling is also important part of ensuring success for each child.
ModeratorI think instruments available for free play is wonderful. Like any things we have available for kiddos, it is great to rotate what is available so that they actually spend time with all the things they have. Also, it is good to not have too many play options at once as this can cause overwhelm and for some kiddos they won’t play with the available objects or they will stick to one object. Rotating also gives the feeling of “getting something new” even if it was available a few months prior and I’ve read a few articles that less objects increases creativity in play.
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