Does music play a role in your child's special ed?

[merry gardens]

I recently read something about music therapy for children with learning disabilities. Has anyone here done that?

 

We haven't done any formal "music therapy", but my children take music lessons. My son with dyslexia takes piano. I signed him up for piano lessons specifically because I had heard playing piano offered some benefits to the brain's wiring. My son's not likely to win any prizes for his piano playing, but he's making progress. His piano teacher is a wonderfully patient woman. After almost two years of lessons, reading music is still difficult for him. He still struggles with timing too. Just clapping in time with music presents a bit of a challenge for him, but he's getting better. He enjoys it. I enjoy music too.

 

I'd love to learn more about ways the rest of you use music in your special education homeschool programs. :bigear:

[Guest]

My dd took therapeutic music for kids on the autism spectrum. It was wonderful for her. Her teacher was the best ever. With her, dd sang duets and was taught how to look at someone's face and respond to another's expressions while singing (they did "I Can Do Anything Better Than You" from Annie Get Your Gun, and it was fantastic); they performed it at a fund-raiser walk for autism. Dd also experimented with writing songs. She performed one at the yearly recital (along with our dog, who was the subject of the song); the therapy place recorded another and had plans to have one of the other autistic kids, who was an artist, do drawings to go with it. They gave dd a tour of their recording studio and just in every way were encouraging, patient, and kind.

 

Dd has since graduated to regular voice lessons, but this gave her a marvelous start and I think was crucial in developing her understanding of non-verbal body and facial language.

[newbie]

My dn listened to the monk music, I forgot what its called and really helped her to focus.

[emonline]

Piano lessons are great for fine motor development. Some recommend singing for articulation issues, but I recently read that different parts of the brain are used for speaking and singing.

[elise1mds]

I'm giving my son piano lessons. He would much rather learn to play a brass instrument, but until he gets his adult teeth in, there's no point because his embouchoure isn't developed and he'd learn one way, only to have to change. (I was told that by my high school jazz teacher who works at the local instrument shop now, so I trust that.) Anyway, I learned piano from my mom and thought that I'd start with the same book she started me with, since she's a pack rat and still had it, but that didn't work at all. I had to find a book even more elementary for him. He finished it this week, and the last two 'songs' were a huge struggle. They were identical, just using a different hand, but the counting threw him for a giant loop. It took him over an hour to learn the first one and a good 30 minutes to do the second one. After the first 15 minutes with the first song, I had told him that he knew what to do and that if he wanted to quit, that was okay, we'd work on it another day, but he kept going and kept insisting on doing it. It was the first time I'd EVER seen him work so hard - and WANT to do it - on something outside of science. I cried when he finally told me, "Mom! I can DO IT!!!" and then did. I was so proud. He's also realized that his fine motor skills are lacking and has been voluntarily working with a stress ball and Play-Doh to build up his finger strength. Music has been fantastic for him.

[wapiti]

Piano lessons here too. The idea came to me one day when I was considering Interactive Metronome, and I thought gee, if I'm going to have someone hit something to a beat...:D Alas, the effect is not the same (we never did IM), but I figure it's got to be good for their brains anyway. One of their old teachers, who was also a piano teacher, mentioned to me that piano requires the right and left brains to work together. And another teacher told me she did a paper or project or something reviewing research that piano helps boost IQ, though thinking out loud I ought to look up what aspect that is, like, what subtests on the WISC could be affected.

 

I've been meaning to add the metronome to their piano practice. DD used the metronome during VT, interestingly.

 

What I find particularly noteworthy is which of my kids are better and which struggle more with piano - it's not who I would have guessed! The one of the three who struggles the most, who practically refuses to read music if he can get away with it (to the point where he got glasses that he doesn't really need), and who has a significant lack of rhythm, is the one who never had severe enough SPD issues to bother getting OT (now in second grade, however, we're seeing handwriting issues). The other two had OT in combination with listening therapy. Makes me wonder if the combo OT/listening therapy three years ago actually helped, or if they just have a slightly different profile than ds. The ds who has more of a knack for piano does sometimes have issues making his fingers do what he wants (fine motor) so I think piano is good for him - and according to his K teacher he has great rhythm (apparently they used to have dance party Thursdays :lol:). What's funny about it is that he has by far the greatest special needs issues of the three (still getting speech therapy, for example), or so it always seemed.

Edited October 31, 2010 by wapiti

[redsquirrel]

My son has a motor issue so we have him take piano lessons. He is almost 6 and has been taking lessons for over a year. Well..the first year the lessons were pretty darn quick. Only recently have they started being more than a few mins before big brother's lessons.

 

He recently learned to play "twinkle' with both hands! I almost cried, he was so darn proud of himself. He just beamed.

[merry gardens]

My dd took therapeutic music for kids on the autism spectrum. It was wonderful for her. Her teacher was the best ever. With her, dd sang duets and was taught how to look at someone's face and respond to another's expressions while singing (they did "I Can Do Anything Better Than You" from Annie Get Your Gun, and it was fantastic); they performed it at a fund-raiser walk for autism. Dd also experimented with writing songs. She performed one at the yearly recital (along with our dog, who was the subject of the song); the therapy place recorded another and had plans to have one of the other autistic kids, who was an artist, do drawings to go with it. They gave dd a tour of their recording studio and just in every way were encouraging, patient, and kind.

 

Dd has since graduated to regular voice lessons, but this gave her a marvelous start and I think was crucial in developing her understanding of non-verbal body and facial language.

Thanks for sharing that. I wondered how therapeutic music differed from regular music lessons.

[merry gardens]

 

My dn listened to the monk music, I forgot what its called and really helped her to focus.

Is there a program using monk music designed especially to teach a child to focus? Or did she use Gregorian chant as background music to help keep focus on another task?

[emonline]

I don''t know anything about monk music, but there is The Listening Program, which is classical music that is supposed to help auditory processing issues.

[merry gardens]

Piano lessons are great for fine motor development. Some recommend singing for articulation issues, but I recently read that different parts of the brain are used for speaking and singing.

I've read that we use different parts of the brain to store memory for spoken words vs. words in songs. I don't know if that affects articulation. As far as articulation is concerned, singing still might help but singing is different from speaking. Vowels carry a little differently. It's usually the vowel sounds that are drawn out while we sing. Consonants requires amost overly dramatic enunciation (and a few special techniques), otherwise it's hard for listeners to understand the words to the songs.

[merry gardens]

I'm giving my son piano lessons. He would much rather learn to play a brass instrument, but until he gets his adult teeth in, there's no point because his embouchoure isn't developed and he'd learn one way, only to have to change. (I was told that by my high school jazz teacher who works at the local instrument shop now, so I trust that.) Anyway, I learned piano from my mom and thought that I'd start with the same book she started me with, since she's a pack rat and still had it, but that didn't work at all. I had to find a book even more elementary for him. He finished it this week, and the last two 'songs' were a huge struggle. They were identical, just using a different hand, but the counting threw him for a giant loop. It took him over an hour to learn the first one and a good 30 minutes to do the second one. After the first 15 minutes with the first song, I had told him that he knew what to do and that if he wanted to quit, that was okay, we'd work on it another day, but he kept going and kept insisting on doing it. It was the first time I'd EVER seen him work so hard - and WANT to do it - on something outside of science. I cried when he finally told me, "Mom! I can DO IT!!!" and then did. I was so proud. He's also realized that his fine motor skills are lacking and has been voluntarily working with a stress ball and Play-Doh to build up his finger strength. Music has been fantastic for him.

:thumbup:

I'm very impressed! Thanks for sharing your story.

[merry gardens]

Piano lessons here too. The idea came to me one day when I was considering Interactive Metronome, and I thought gee, if I'm going to have someone hit something to a beat...:D Alas, the effect is not the same (we never did IM), but I figure it's got to be good for their brains anyway. One of their old teachers, who was also a piano teacher, mentioned to me that piano requires the right and left brains to work together. And another teacher told me she did a paper or project or something reviewing research that piano helps boost IQ, though thinking out loud I ought to look up what aspect that is, like, what subtests on the WISC could be affected.

 

I've been meaning to add the metronome to their piano practice. DD used the metronome during VT, interestingly.

 

What I find particularly noteworthy is which of my kids are better and which struggle more with piano - it's not who I would have guessed! The one of the three who struggles the most, who practically refuses to read music if he can get away with it (to the point where he got glasses that he doesn't really need), and who has a significant lack of rhythm, is the one who never had severe enough SPD issues to bother getting OT (now in second grade, however, we're seeing handwriting issues). The other two had OT in combination with listening therapy. Makes me wonder if the combo OT/listening therapy three years ago actually helped, or if they just have a slightly different profile than ds. The ds who has more of a knack for piano does sometimes have issues making his fingers do what he wants (fine motor) so I think piano is good for him - and according to his K teacher he has great rhythm (apparently they used to have dance party Thursdays :lol:). What's funny about it is that he has by far the greatest special needs issues of the three (still getting speech therapy, for example), or so it always seemed.

Some children have a gift for music despite whatever other problems they might have going on!

 

My ds has tried the metronome with his piano because he was interested in it. Unfortunately, he played as he always does, missed a beat or two, and the metronome kept going and going. He didn't even seem to notice that he wasn't in time with the metronome. Rhythm does not come natural to him. He really needs more work with just clapping with the metronome or other songs before complicated it with playing piano too. Someone posted on the curriculum board a couple days ago about hand clapping games/songs and dyslexia. I'm going to try to add more clapping and rhythm separate from the piano to work on that. Piano isn't exactly like band or choir, and once he gets off beat he stays off beat without ever catching up to the metronome.

 

I've heard others hear mention the interactive metronome and I googled it to learn more. I still don't really understand what the child does with interactive metronome training.:confused: Is it anything like music lessons or is it entirely different?:confused:

[merry gardens]

My son has a motor issue so we have him take piano lessons. He is almost 6 and has been taking lessons for over a year. Well..the first year the lessons were pretty darn quick. Only recently have they started being more than a few mins before big brother's lessons.

 

He recently learned to play "twinkle' with both hands! I almost cried, he was so darn proud of himself. He just beamed.

:hurray:

[emonline]

Interactive Metronome is not really like music lessons at all. It only involves keeping the beat. We did it a really long time ago, but I don't think any type of musical instruments were involved -- just keeping the beat with each hand and and each foot. I know for the feet, it involved stomping on a mat.

[merry gardens]

Interactive Metronome is not really like music lessons at all. It only involves keeping the beat. We did it a really long time ago, but I don't think any type of musical instruments were involved -- just keeping the beat with each hand and and each foot. I know for the feet, it involved stomping on a mat.

Thanks for sharing that. :)

[LizzyBee]

My 9 yo is doing the Therapeutic Listening Program, and she's done Interactive Metronome. She takes piano and Irish dancing lesson. I think TLP and IM laid the groundwork for her to be successful at piano and Irish dancing.

[Leonor]

Don't mean to hijack the thread but I have a question for all of you regarding music lessons. I'm glad for this thread.

 

I know that music is good for everyone. Yet, I have not signed my ds14 for piano lessons because of his reluctance to do so. My ds16 takes violin lessons and did so since he was 4 on and off.

 

Ds14 is the one with learning issues. Extremely gifted. He can imitate any voice or sound he hears. From the tapping of the feet in Happy Feet to all of the Looney Tune voices or Disney Voices(whether it be Goofy, Mickey). He just recently was imitating the voice of an actor in Gettysburg.

 

I do have a piano at home that has not been tuned since I was 19 and I'm 47. However, I don't feel competent to teach piano.

 

Would you still enroll him in lessons? I'm so afraid that it might be difficult for him and he will feel like it is one more thing he is not good at.

 

Do you recommend a Suzuki method?

 

Thanks for listening.