[Laura-Maria Chami]

Jeannelle- I agree with your assessment of South Florida families. It is such a diverse cultural environment, and interventions and communication has to constantly be adapted to the families needs. It can be difficult and challenging, but extremely rewarding when it comes to learning different cultural styles and discovering music that can work in that setting.

For me myself I do not work alot with young children at the moment. Working in hospice means working with families, and the families typically just need for their music therapist to communicate with them easily. I do know that Naples, Fl is a growing community when it comes to families and children, and is looking for a educational music program for toddlers and children like Sprouting Melodies, so that will be exciting that incorporate later this year.

[Laura-Maria Chami]

I’ve got to jump on the bandwagon and agree with Penny: we do have such a unique skill set where we can observe and assess situations and behaviors differently from other professions and practice. We have years and years of music theory/sight singing training education, we are proficient in many instruments, and more importantly we are educated and trained in different types of behaviors. So it’s so important to point out to parents that we observe music behaviors and communication of children to parents, when other practices cannot do so.

I believe that music therapists bring a safe. educational , fun, and interactive environment for children and families to learn and develop their music skills, as well as develop their bonds with each other. As I stated earlier, we bring with us a wealth of information along with us that is extremely beneficial to our practice and to the families we work with.

[Laura-Maria Chami]

Well working in hospice, we use a lot of Singing and Listening. Singing to create awareness of the patients surroundings, create trust between the mt and patient, offer a sense of independence and responsibility when the patient singing along, and more importantly, a sense of control when they get to sing a song they recognize and know that their disease hasn’t taken everything away. This also applies to listening, as they get a sense of control and responsibility when they get asked to choose a song, and if they are listening to the instructions, they get the reward of singing along and feeling a sense of familiarity and comfort.

As I have been taking this course, I can see how these four areas would change in my practice working with children and families, then from when I working this population a year or two ago.

Sabrina- thank you for sharing about the ocean drum! It’s important for us to recall that we need to be aware of how these four areas also affect us and what we can learn from them, and that they still apply to us

[Laura-Maria Chami]

Singing: I would use the song “Good Morning to the Sun”. Awareness: vocalize pitches at the beginning of the song. Trust: Vocalize correct notes to the song. Independence: Child makes vocalization related to pitch. Control: Child strings more than one pitch together. Responsibility: pitch is vocalized to meter

Playing Instruments: I would use the song “Roll the Cabbassa”. Awareness: Explores instruments with hands and mouth. Trust: play cabbassa to music. Independence: Rolls cabbassa evenly on hands and arms. Control: Plays cabbassa to a variety of tempos. Responsibility: Plays cabbassa to even beat.

Moving: The song “Magic Scarf” where a child follows movement instructions, utilizing a scarf. Awareness: Aware to move arms up in the air. Trust: moves arms in time to music. Independence: moves arms when told to. Control: Can isolate arms and hands. Responsibility: can move arms in the air with scarf.

Listening: Using “Old McDonald”. Awareness: Child will respond differently to each animal. Trust: child will recognize each animal. Independence: can vocalize animal sounds when asked. Control: can vocalize animal sounds to tempo. Responsibility: can stay focused while listening during the song.

Rylie- I loved your approaches to this assignment. Such simple familiar songs, yet so much can be done with them!

[Laura-Maria Chami]

Amanda, I completely understand and empathize when it comes to trying to relay information and facts to parents when you don’t have children of your own. I even encounter it in hospice when providing bereavement services to the bereaved spouses, and not knowing how to literally relate when I’ve never been married myself. Yet it further shows us how important it is for us to be well educated and know all the facts and resources, so to provide the best services possible

[Laura-Maria Chami]

Amanda, I completely agree with needing to letting our inner child out while working with children. It’s crucial for children to trust us and feel that they can relate to us on same level and aspect. It’s also important for us to have that child-like presence so that we provide the best services for the children and families. It allows us to tap into that creativity that we wouldn’t find if we didn’t think differently.

[Laura-Maria Chami]

I grew up in a Lebanese household where alot of French and Arabic music was played in my household, so listening to the radio to get a taste of “American” music was a past time of mine and kind of an outlet for me. But music has completely been in my life always in some way or form.
Living in Tallahassee for 6-7 years allowed me to become immersed in the country music lifestyle. So moving to the Fort Lauderdale/Miami area 3 years ago has really been a culture change, which is saying alot from me! The community here is so diverse in their music culture; we go from the typical R&B to Spanish/Salsa music. This doesn’t include the older community down here in south florida who truly appreciates the old standards: from Johnny Cash, to Juan Gabriel Garcia, to some old fashioned Jazz and Frank Sinatra.

Jeanelle, I really appreciate how your music culture has evolved, grown, adapted and yet stayed true to who you are all at the same time! It really symbolizes the beauty and power that is music.

[Laura-Maria Chami]

Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to work with children in over a year. Yet, as I was watching these videos, I did recall some moments when I did work with children ages 7-11 that were of the spectrum where whenever they saw an instrument that fascinated them, they would gain immediate independence and confidence, in their music skills and gross motor movements, and began playing the instrument.

Hillary, that was such a wonderful story!! I love how the child would look back at her parents and make sure they were letting her do this on her own (yay confidence!!), but also instinctively understood that when the music was over, that it wasn’t time to play the instrument and tried to go back to her parents.

[Laura-Maria Chami]

So this week, I actually incorporated the “are you ready for music” and “good morning to you” with my patients in hospice. Specifically I used them for my memory care groups, where we use different instruments, and they had a blast engaging in a new type of “hello song”. One lady specifically went “I’m ready for music!!! Watch me dance! I’m ready” and stood up and wiggled her booty. ????</p>
<p>I also sang some of the other songs like “hold on tight” while I was home, and my roommate happened to be snuggling with her dog, and grabbed her dog for a hug when i sang it.</p>
<p>Rebekah: I look forward to hearing how the wiggly song went with you!!! Keep us updated on that!

[Laura-Maria Chami]

What I took away from this weeks content was the different development milestones in infants and toddlers, but more specifically what are the “red flags” to observe and look for. It’s easy to dismiss something simple as a child still crawling on their bellies after 12 mo. as a child “taking their time to grow” when in fact, it can be a sign at a developmental delay. All this information was extreme;y fascinating and pertinent to what we are learning because it’ll be important to be somewhat of an “expert” or just plain knowledgeable in the eyes of the parents we will be working with. When I have a parent ask me a question about how their child is doing, I want to make sure I know all the signs and milestones so I can accurately answer them. It’s also great to know this information because it’ll help us in planning the correct musical interventions for the correct developmental level.

[Laura-Maria Chami]

I personally bring my high energy, creativity, and compassion to early childhood music therapy based programs. I was trained in the pediatric setting and worked two years in hospice, so I have an understanding of how parents and families react and interact with each other, and with their music therapists. I understand how fierce and passionate parents and caregivers can get when it comes to the care and development of their child/family member.

I also bring about a year and a half of contracting with different private practices that focused on giving private MT sessions to children with special needs. So that experience with development and behavioral delays has provided me with a base for on-hand knowledge and experience.

All this information will support my work as a music therapist, specifically an early childhood music therapist. I believe this because all the information that I’m learning and gathering will strengthen my abilities to provide adequate and approrpiate care and interventions for children and their families.

[Laura-Maria Chami]

Erika, I am extremely excited to hear that!!
I honestly can’t wait to have the practice set up for the fall!

[Laura-Maria Chami]

Hi! My name is Laura and I am a music therapist in Davie, FL. I currently work at Season’s Hospice and Palliative Care of Broward County BUT plan to move to Naples, FL at the end of the year to open my own MT practice! I have experience with early childhood through my interactions with patients during my internship at Chris Evert Children’s Hospital, and later on contracting with different private practices in South Florida. I am extremely excited to delve into the Sprouting Melodies material and become more educated in early childhood interventions utilizing music. I hope/plan to use the Sprouting Melodies program in my future practice.

Thank you!

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