[Lauren Servos]

I use these 4 areas of musical growth every day in my hospital work. I often use vocal and instrumental improvisation with movement to encourage children in the control or responsibility stages to express themselves and their feelings. I use listening mostly when working on pain management or relaxation, or to provide emotional support and a safe space for children who want to share a favorite song and listen to it together.

[Lauren Servos]

Hi everyone!

Singing:
Awareness-vocalizes with vowel and consonant sounds, imitates vocalizations of others, important to reflect the infant’s pitch and point out the pitched nature of the vocalizations to the parents. Trust-matches some pitches, important to encourage parents to view these vocalizations as the beginning of communication. Independence-uses musical babble, these children often sing and explore their voices alone. Control-begin to follow the melodic contour of familiar songs, may not demonstrate the ability to sing exact pitch during songs, but they can sing with the basic contours of the songs, may love to perform. Responsibility-shows the ability to use pulse and meter, may experiment with pulse and meter when children explore and play.

Playing instruments:
Awareness-responds differently to sedative vs. play-song music, shows awareness of sound vs. silence, explores instruments through sight, touch, taste, and sound. Trust-briefly uses pulse and meter, speed of their pulse increases throughout the trust stage. Independence-children need the opportunity to explore a great variety of instruments purposefully. Control-love to control the instruments and practice starting and stopping, important to encourage parents to stop and wait. Responsibility-can maintain a steady beat, their ability to maintain a beat creates an opportunity for connection with others in the group.

Moving:
Awareness-rhythmic movements are instinctual, very naturally move or are still. Trust-responds to music with purposeful movements, often not synchronized to the music but does begin and end with the music. Independence-become able to isolate body parts to purposefully move independently, movement is not only purposeful but intentional. Control-takes pride in imitating learned musical movements like clapping, internalize music into their personality. Responsibility-able to connect musical movements into a sequence, enjoy the cognitive and musical challenges.

Listening:
Awareness-recognizes changes in vocal timbre and their own parents’ voices. Trust-recognizes and is comforted by familiar melodies. Independence-match the intensity of movements to the intensity of the music. Control-they have the skills to stop action to listen. Responsibility-listens to the music of others, takes pride in demonstrating their own play and is able to stop and listen to others as well.

[Lauren Servos]

Many of the families I work with prefer pop, Christian or country music. Parents often giggle when I use one of their favorite pop songs as a lullaby for their child in the hospital. Anything can be adapted, though, so I hope that hearing my own lullaby versions of songs encourages the family to sing to their child, even if they don’t know any traditional kids songs.

[Lauren Servos]

So far, I’ve only sung these songs with my daughter, but she loved them! I’m excited to use some with my patients next week. “I Like This Song” sounds like so much fun, and perfect to use when creating an environment for free self-expression.

[Lauren Servos]

Sorry for my late response, everyone! This information was very helpful. Many of my patients are infants in the ICU who have been in the hospital since birth, and are in the awareness or trust stage of musical development. I recently worked with a baby boy in the trust stage who was intubated after a surgery, but awake enough to hold onto a shaker and was able to explore the sounds he could make by tapping it onto his bedrails gently as I sang. He also was able to communicate through eye contact how much music he was able to tolerate, and when he was ready to end the session. The music therapy gave him an opportunity to communicate and interact despite being intubated and confined to bed.

[Lauren Servos]

This week was a great review of early childhood development! I appreciated the comments about how to discuss certain developmental stages with parents. I love that music therapy groups give us the opportunity to support the entire family unit!

[Lauren Servos]

I bring my joy, acceptance, and encouragement to early childhood groups. So often children are told what to do and what not to do, and although these groups are structured, I love having the ability to adapt interventions to celebrate the spontaneous contributions of children in a developmentally appropriate way. It is very meaningful to me to support the emotional development of children as well, and to model positive interactions for families.

[Lauren Servos]

Hi, everyone! My name is Lauren Servos, and I live in Indianapolis with my husband, 8 month old daughter, and dog. I graduated from Michigan State University in 2008 and completed my internship at Riley Hospital for Children here in Indianapolis. I was determined to work at Riley, and there were no music therapy openings at the time, so I was able to add on a child life internship and become certified in both music therapy and child life, and moved into a child life position. After about 3 years working as a child life specialist in various inpatient and outpatient units, a music therapy job opened up and I have been working there as a music therapist for the past 3 years. I now focus on the pediatric intensive care units. Since having my daughter, I’ve been feeling like it might be good for my mental health to explore working in a less intense environment. After one particularly sad day at the hospital the month I returned from maternity leave, I knew I needed to spend some time with healthy, joyful kids, and asked my daycare provider (who runs the daycare out of her home) if I could bring over my guitar and some small instruments and run a little music group. It was a fun little group, and helped me feel renewed. My daycare provider raved about it and suggested I go into private practice to run early childhood groups! I love what I do in the hospital, but I think I’m ready for a change, and for the challenge and excitement that comes with starting a private practice. I’m presenting to 4 Child Development Associate certification classes in April. I could reach around 90 people who work in or run daycares, so I’m hoping to wow them with my expertise and get some groups started there.

I worked for a Kindermusik company during my internship, and that company is still up and running in my area, so I’m hoping to get some ideas and advice from others about how to make this a positive, collaborative relationship as I explore private practice. I’m excited to connect with all of you!

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