[Shonda Malik]

I work in the greater Cincinnati and Dayton areas. With my adult clients I often have groups with a wide age range. Traditional folk songs like “She’ll be comin round the mountain” are big hits with all the ages. However, personal music preferences among the adults range from country, to popular, to classic rock and rhythm & blues. To assure that I provide the preferred music for all the tastes and ages I select different ‘song collections’, most of which I borrow from the library, so that there is a never ending variety of styles and eras represented. With my hospice clients hymns are a important aspect for many of them so I have to be sure to check the client’s religious preference.

[Shonda Malik]

I am preparing for a music therapy camp for children with whom we want to help develop their self-awareness of feelings (ages 7-11). I was excited to learn “how do you know when it’s summer time?” I plan to adapt the words to “how do you know when you’re feeling sad” and then use the second half of the song as a songwriting experience where the children will create lyrics that describe physical characteristics and thoughts they might have when they are sad.

[Shonda Malik]

I have a three year old client with a potential diagnosis of autism although she is still waiting to be officially assessed. I have observed her displaying characteristics of the control stage. One of our recent goals was for her to learn to answer the question “what is your name?” I used a song with her and after two sessions she sang on the third session “my name is _____”. She seems to understand the question answer form AEB her not singing the question and just singing the answer. Another characteristic of the control stage is that she loves when I match my keyboard accompaniment to her instrument playing, with all of her abrupt stops/start, slow, fast, as well as mimic her vocalizations, and I in turn use different songs to lead her in imitating me.

[Shonda Malik]

The information from this week was a wonderful review for me about developmental age levels which I will use to best design music therapy interventions for the clients I serve who have developmental ages which are lower than their chronological ages. For example if my client has a developmental age of 3 I should select a counting song that goes as high as number four and not expect that they count to eight.

My experience in working with children with developmental disabilities will enable me to recognize in typical early childhood groups potential developmental concerns. The same experience will help me address those concerns with music therapy interventions to support development.

[Shonda Malik]

My most valuable takeaway from this weeks’ content was the emphasis Beth put on us being a source of education for the parent’s regarding developmental appropriateness as well as spotting when there might be a developmental delay. I often find myself noticing developmental aspects about a client but I sometimes forget that the parent of this single child hasn’t had the privilege of working with many same-aged children like I have and thus doesn’t always know if they should be concerned. I also found it valuable to be reminded about the developmental appropriateness of the aggression and rebelliousness of 3-4 year olds and comforting to be able to share with parents that this aggression will decrease as they become 4-5 year olds.

[Shonda Malik]

Hello everyone. My name is Shonda Malik. I work in Ohio in the Dayton and Cincinnati areas. My music therapy alma mater is Ohio University. I interned at a child and adolescent pyschiatric facility/school in Richmond Virginia. I am a mother of four boys. I have been working as a board certified music therapist for 8 years. I opened my own music therapy practice in 2011. I recently completed my masters degree in Clinical Mental Health Counseling in December 2013. I work with a range of populations including geriatric hospice, adult developmental centers, private child clients with special needs, and public schools with a caseload of children ages 5-13 with autism and other developmental diagnosis. My individual private clients have been as young as 18 months and I in the past led some preschool music therapy classes before budgets were cut. I absolutely delight in working with early childhood ages. I have attempted to form classes at my local YMCA and recreation centers in the past but sign-ups have never been enough to run a class. My reason for taking this class is to learn marketing strategies to successfully run classes. I’m going to start with the idea Meredith shared of offering free 1x a month sessions at my local library. I most look forward to learning lots of new songs which I will be able to use with my private clients as well as group classes. I also wish to learn more details about development and the use of age appropriate instruments. I look forward to reading everyone’s posts throughout our training. -Shonda:)

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