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May 3, 2023 at 6:13 pm
in reply to: What are the needs of the families and communities that you work with?
KeymasterI appreciated each of your responses. Thank you for your wonderful insights.
KeymasterThis question is always an important one that informs us about the unique skills and background we bring to our work. And, how important our work is for supporting young families. I’ve always found this question to be important to ask myself when I am going to be advocating for music therapy and setting up family music classes.
April 30, 2023 at 11:27 am
in reply to: What are the needs of the families and communities that you work with?
KeymasterKimberly,
Thank you for sharing, with us, your insights about the community you work within. I hear how important building a sense of community is for those that you support. I also hear how music plays a multifaceted role in validating experience, giving individuals a feeling of autonomy and ownership over their environment, and also on being the bridge that is needed to create community and is essential for well being.
April 30, 2023 at 11:17 am
in reply to: How have you used these four music experiences in your practice?
KeymasterHi Maggie,
Thank you so much for thoughtful and insightful response.
I wanted to respond to your question about assessing listening skills and assessment. I am apologizing ahead of time that this will be a bit long.
Assessment, from a traditional therapeutic lens, looks at skill ability and acquirement from a very concrete and fixed lens. Meaning, once you have a skill it is mastered, then you have all the skills mastered for that developmental level you are now at that level (and it’s a “fixed” position). However, the neurodiversity movement and emerging research is showing how this view of development does not match what it actually looks like in all people. In fact, with neurodiversity we know that neurotypical development “can” have some areas of fixed skill mastery, but overall, it is rather fluid, and we are never firmly planted within the levels. It also acknowledges that people who are neurodivergent are even more interesting in that they have asynchronous development which does not match the standard levels created for the neurotypical population. A second consideration is that someone’s “skill ability” actually fluctuates from day to day, week to week, and year to year. Also, as one skill may be the central focus of the body or the individual, other skill areas can regress in order to compensate for the centrally focused skill. So, it may look like other skill areas are no longer developed or not developed and then suddenly they re-appear (or appear out of nowhere).
Taking all of this into consideration when we assess, for individuals that appear to be on a neurotypical scale it seems more useful to look at global development and thinking about “moving” or “being” within a level as opposed to a fixed idea like “the child is at this developmental level.” For me, when I assess using Elizabeth’s scale, I find I get an overall picture of working within a specific developmental level based on the number of items that are present and then I use that as a baseline for monitoring how those skills move. When they show a general movement vertically these are signs skill acquisition is happening. Then when a more global movement has occurred within the next level from there, I know there is a moving or being within the next level happening.
Relating this directly to someone demonstrating listening skill, we do not have the capability to formally determine if pitch discrimination is always happening because it’s not always something that can be demonstrated. Certainly, when someone can match pitch, move a pitch with the change of pitch, or verbally identify the pitch these can be signs that pitch discrimination is happening. But there are many people who can audiate (hear in their mind) pitch discrimination but not demonstrate they are doing that. This is especially true for children. So, I try to really look at what is globally happening with listening to guide me, as opposed looking for a specific mastered skill.
I did want to share one last thought about neurodivergence. With neurodivergent individuals it is a bit more challenging and unhelpful to look for all the areas of development to be happening within one stage. This is because of the asynchronous skill acquisition that happens. Therefore, I find it really important to break down and look at each skill area separately, while also looking at how those effects the outward look of global development. For example, I may have an individual who shows that they are generally in the awareness stage of pitch due to apraxia, but rhythmically they are at a trust level. Apraxia effects the motor coordination for all the motor areas involved in speech and singing. So, discrimination may very well be happening but do due motor coordination challenges the individual will not be able to demonstrate what’s happening within their auditory system. At the same time, they could also be showing skill mastery of all the rhythmic skills in the Control phase. In some cases, you can find children who demonstrate rhythmic skills at the Trust stage and then pitch skills at the responsibility phase. This makes it virtually impossible to give a global level of development because they are not really moving within one stage or phase, rather they are within multiple areas of development unique to their body. This, in turn, informs me how I can accommodate the areas that are in drastically different places so that the individual can continue to have experiences that supports all areas of development. I also try to move away from the idea that all these areas of development have to eventually be at the same level as that is not likely to ever happen for a person with a disability.
I think Elizabeth’s assessment is unique in that it really lends itself nicely to the idea of fluidity of development and can be easily adapted to the unique and asynchronous development that happens within neurodivergence.
I apologize for a long response and hope this is helpful.
April 24, 2023 at 7:39 pm
in reply to: How have you used these four music experiences in your practice?
KeymasterThank you for sharing about your work with older adults and young children. As I mentioned above Elizabeth intends for this work to extend beyond the early childhood years.
KeymasterThank you for sharing this experience with all of us. Elizabeth is in the process of adding older ages to her work as many participants have shared how much this training has informed their work with ages older than early childhood.
KeymasterThank you all for sharing your experiences. I’ve enjoyed hearing about how you each engaged with the songs and how things unfolded within the experience.
KeymasterHi Katelyn,
That is wonderful and much of what Elizabeth hopes happens with her music! Thank you for sharing.
KeymasterThank you all for sharing about your communities. I always enjoy hearing about all the different communities music therapists are working with and the music within those cultures.
KeymasterHi Maggie,
I love all of the rich diverse cultures you are working with and the different music you have had the opportunity to engage in with your clients.
Thank you for sharing the apps. I a have the Radio Garden app but did not know about the other one.
KeymasterFor this question you will want to include each of the developmental levels (that could be a bullet point or narrative) and then 3 specific responses to music for each of the developmental levels.
KeymasterIf you have not had the opportunity to work with young children, you can consider how these levels appear with older individuals in various stages of life. Or, again if you know anyone with young children it may be helpful to consider where you’ve engaged with a young child and describe those moments.
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