[Lauren Bevilacqua]

Warm, Calm, Consistent, Enriching, Reliable. 

[Lauren Bevilacqua]

I’ve never done a group with this age group, but after watching the module and working through the material, I could see myself doing groups with the little ones. And I liked that the flow of the session experiences, the construction of the music, and the application of all that knowledge of developmental milestones made total sense.  

[Lauren Bevilacqua]

I think the biggest need in my community is to provide an opportunity for parents and children to connect. I live in the Silicon Valley where the population of children on the autism spectrum is very prevalent. I think parents are just looking for all different ways to connect with their children. 

There are several “mommy and me” classes, kindermusik and music together classes in this area. But there are not, to my knowledge, any of the music therapists in this area providing music therapy based early childhood classes. So there is a need for this type of class to help fulfill a need for parents to connect with their kids. I’m working on it. There are a few organizations that I am looking to partner with for this purpose. When I moved back to the bay area, I decided that I wanted to be an “opportunity creator.” I’m finding that working through this material is definitely helping me be more confident in pursuing more work opportunities with this population. 

[Lauren Bevilacqua]

Music therapists are trained to use music for a specific purpose. We are trained in the clinical application of music and music experiences. We work across all domains. This, to me, sets us apart from any other music-based profession and I love that about our field. To me the value comes from our music education and study – always musicians first – and then the knowledge of development and how to apply music for a purpose. Music therapy can bring the opportunity for growth and discovery. It can transform ones perception of themselves and their abilities. It can change lives. I tell my potential clients/acquaintances/people in the elevator that music alone is lovely and helpful – necessary even, but when you have someone who knows how to facilitate growth through music, the possibilities are virtually limitless.

[Lauren Bevilacqua]

Singing: 
Awareness: turn eye gaze towards source of singing
Trust: Makes purposefully pitched vocalizations, not necessarily in sync with therapist or even matching pitches – but using vocalizations with a purpose.
Independence: Babbles with melodic inflection
Control: Produces discrete pitches
Responsibility: Uses melodic contour; discrete pitches are not always accurate, but can match other’s pitches.
 
Playing: 

Awareness: Movements and rhythms are in simple rhythms
Trust: Moves in and out of organized, metric playing
Independence: Uses pulse and meter in playing 
Control: imitates simple repeated rhythms, like pulse;  group beats into meter
Responsibility: Maintains a steady beat; imitates simple rhythmic patterns
 
Moving: 

Awareness: Instinctually moves to music.
Trust:Moves rhythmically, but not necessarily in synchronization with the music in the environment.
Independence: Isolates parts of body to move rhythmically and intentionally
Control: Dances spontaneously to music
Responsibility: Uses musical movements in sequence
 
Listening: 

Awareness: recognizes familiar vocal timbres – mostly like parents or caregivers.
Trust: recognizes familiar melodies
Independence: recognizes/attends to familiar melodies and can detect slight changes in familiar melodies or rhythms
Control: Requesting familiar songs; using spontaneous song fragments
Responsibility: Recognizing melodic rhythm without the lyrics; Listen to others play and sing
 
 
After going through all of these levels, I found myself starting at the end and working my way backwards to see if everything made sense. Did anyone else do that? This was a great exercise. 

[Lauren Bevilacqua]

Yes – I have used the four experiences in my sessions. Although, like many others have commented, listening experiences are experiences that I have not used as often. I think listening, at least in my early childhood groups, is sort of the opposite of our playing experiences. The experiences seem more inwardly focused, introspective. After a rousing session of playing and singing and moving, listening seems like a break from active music making and participation to a more passive and receptive mode – a sort of sensory break… but still in music (if that makes any sense). I think it balances out the session nicely. Since starting this course, I have given more consideration and intention to my ‘purposeful crafted clinical music interventions’ (read: songs) and the same kind of attention to using listening experiences in session planning and implementation. 

[Lauren Bevilacqua]

I live in an extremely diverse area of Northern California. We have all types of ethnicities, socio-economic levels, and religions. One of the songs that persists among all of my little guys is “Call Me Maybe.” It cracks me up. I like to try different styles and modes in sessions- like for movement, the kids have taken to an exciting motif in a Spanish style (with just a touch of dissonance). I use natural minors for more lullaby-like experiences when needed. I am constantly surprised by the types of music that the children respond to. I like what Emily wrote about using more modes and different chord progressions. It reminded me that exposure to all different styles of music is important and that rich musical experiences are key. And – you never know what might work for someone until you try it.  

[Lauren Bevilacqua]

I do an integrated early childhood group every week. I see a variety of developmental levels in this one session. What is most vivid from this week, after taking the information from this module, was thinking about a movement experience that we did this week. I was improvising the music in a bright key, with syncopated, rhythmic guitar. We did more organized movements like stomping, clapping, spinning/twirling, jumping (each supported with different musical elements)- basically encouraging the kids to move and get engaged with the music in some way.
I had a variety of kids moving around the room- which probably looked more chaotic than it was- but what caught my eye was a very young boy. He just started in our group and at the school in the last few weeks. In previous sessions, he seemed tentative and barely tolerating the sensory environment. This day, he came right up to me, reached out for the guitar I was holding, touched the strings and then started bouncing up and down. To me, he made the choice to turn his attention towards the music, even reach out and then move. It seems like he is starting to explore the trust level – with short periods of response and showing an authentic curiosity in the source of sound, exploring with hands and/or mouth and then turning away towards his caregiver when he seemed to reach his sensory threshold.

[Lauren Bevilacqua]

I don’t have kids of my own or any nieces or nephews. But I am the youngest in my immediate and extended family. I have always been “the baby” – one prone to interesting and wild ideas, projects, and quite a bit of enthusiasm for my passions. Lucky for me, that was encouraged in my family.

My sister and I used to make up musicals and puppet shows and perform them for our parents. On Halloween, my friends and I used to have a “wall of death” where we told ghost stories with dramatic reenactments and when the cool babysitter would come over while our parents were out, my sister and I would dance around the living room to our favorite songs. We were always creating, performing, dancing, laughing and moving.

That nature of play and creativity (even absurdity sometimes) is something I think I bring to my work with all of my clients, not just the little guys. With school and training, I can balance the playfulness with making progress towards functional goals, but I think in fostering therapeutic work with a client, there sometimes needs to be some level of creative risk-taking on the therapist’s part (based on assessment of client needs and clinical judgement) to let the client know that it is okay to “go for it.”  Sometimes my clients need permission to play the way they want to play. Every client/group is different, but I think for the early childhood groups, a little playfulness will serve well to provide thrilling experiences for the children that also meet their developmental needs.

[Lauren Bevilacqua]

The most valuable idea I took away from this week’s course content was the idea of moving your mind into a child-like state (not childish) and to not be afraid to feel and experience how it feels to be a young child and more specifically, how it feels to be a young child in music.

Hearing Beth encourage me to feel and understand how rich and exhilarating it can be to experience life/music/events with a child-like mind was a reminder wake-up call to bring back PLAY (and playfulness) into session planning and implementation.

I really enjoyed jumping and skipping on this Friday afternoon.
 

[Lauren Bevilacqua]

Hi!
I am Lauren Bevilacqua and a board certified music therapist in San Jose, CA – right in the heart of silicon valley.

I started my education in at Chapman University in Southern California and ended up graduating from Arizona State University in 2009. I transferred schools just after completing my third year at Chapman. I earned a well rounded education and a variety of training experiences between the two programs – but never early childhood. I interned in Rochester, NY with the FingerLakes DDSO working in an improvisational model with adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities in a Day Habilitation program. When I completed my certification in 2010, I decided to move back home to the California Bay Area. After living in southern California, the desert and through a NY snowicane (yup, a snowicane), I decided that California never looked better. I moved home and while looking for employment, ended up starting my private practice.   I was in denial about my private practice for a while; I had convinced myself that performing administrative tasks was not for me.  I went through my 5 stages of grief and now I LOVE working for myself. It suits my work and life style, ambitions and my “morning-person” productivity patterns. I work with a variety of clientele, although most of my work is with students and young children on the autism spectrum. I run two integrated early childhood groups every week and love interacting with the little guys. They crack me up and every week I walk away having learned something new.

One of my strengths is Learning. I am a learner and will always be a learner- it is one of the reasons I gravitated towards music therapy in the first place. There will always be something new to study in this field, new research, new models, new techniques, new clients. Every single moment is different.
As an introverted learner, I am constantly (and joyfully!) sinking my teeth into all the possibilities. I hope to never stop learning.
I am extremely inspired by Ken Bruscia’s keynote at the 2011 AMTA National Conference in Atlanta. Did anyone else see it? He talked about an integrated approach to music therapy where we need to be prepared to provide ALL types of experiences for our clients if we wish to truly guarantee the full scope of our practice. To me, this was a personal challenge to pursue additional training in different approaches, philosophies, and/or models.  Since then, I’ve been on a continuing education “quest.”  I had the opportunity to chat with Meredith and Beth at our WRAMTA regional conference early this month.  Their passion for this program is contagious. After a brief chat, I decided to take this training to learn more about early childhood music and development and so that I can enhance the therapeutic effects of my early childhood groups and to create new groups in my geographic area. There is definitely a need in this community.

As a side note, I am a total music and songwriting nerd and I can’t wait to explore the musical elements of early childhood music.
I look forward to taking this course with all of you!
Thanks!

[Author]

Posts