"As a music therapist I can give people back the power to communicate"

"I practised as a full-time music therapist for 20 years, mainly in the field of adult mental health as part of a large NHS mental health trust. It was during this period that I began to combine my clinical role with supporting the development of the profession. Along with another colleague, we developed a new MA course at Anglia Ruskin. This course became the first masters course in music therapy in the UK. I continued to work as a music therapist and today, we have our own new state of the art music therapy centre at Anglia Ruskin, where we not only train students, but also deliver clinical work with local children and adults, as well as lead a pioneering research department.

I have always been passionate about the potential for music to change people, situations, and particularly to help communication when words are not available. I am a singer, pianist and violinist and using live music has been central to my work where music is used to work towards therapeutic change for adults with a variety of mental health problems including dementia, schizophrenia, depression and personality disorder. 

Latest studies show both that music affects the brain positively, and also that regular music therapy sessions reduce agitation and anxiety, and the need for medication for people with dementia. Leaving someone without the power to communicate is not right – music has the power to address that. Music therapy addresses the emotional, physical and intellectual needs of people with dementia and I have just begun talks with the local NHS trust where I work about referring more people with dementia for music therapy."

Helen Odell-Miller @ The Guardian 

How music acts as medicine for the soul

Henry, an elderly man living in a US nursing home and largely unresponsive to the outside world, receives a pair of headphones to listen to his favourite artist, Cab Calloway .

The neurologist Dr Oliver Sacks, who's involved with the project, describes Henry as "almost unalive", but as soon as the music starts there's a complete transformation. He starts moving and singing along, becoming animated. "The philosopher Kant once called music the 'quickening art' and Henry has been 'quickened' – he's been brought to life," Sacks says in the video.

But the effect doesn't stop once the music is turned off. Though he's normally unable to answer the simplest questions, Henry now starts speaking about his love for music, how it makes him feel, and singing I'll Be Home for Christmas, remembering every single word of the lyrics. It's almost magical.

There's a charity here in the UK that knows all about how music can transform the lives of those who suffer from autism, dementia, and a whole range of mental health problems. The work of the founders of Nordoff Robbins – Paul Nordoff, an American composer and pianist, and Clive Robbins, a special education teacher – began more than half a century ago, as they used music therapy to help isolated and disabled children. In 1980 the charity bearing their names was established in the UK.

Nordoff and Robbins discovered music's power to open up the senses and "reawaken" people with dementia doesn't only come from the familiarity of favourite songs. In a mesmerising video, one of the charity's music therapists starts communicating with a woman whose dementia has lead to the loss of speech, by doing a sort of singing and guitar-playing call-and-response. In another one, Jack, an autistic boy with severe learning difficulties, lights up and starts to communicate not only by singing, but with his whole body.

But music can also have a calming and healing effect on those with mental illnesses. Nordoff Robbins works with Lance, who lives with schizophrenia and says music therapy makes him "feel more human again" and is "a haven from intrusive bad thoughts and depression".

The charity provides music therapy at his local centre for people with mental health problems, where he plays guitar, often supporting other people's songs. "I feel that music is holding my hand through all this," he explains.

The therapists who go into schools, hospitals, care homes and prisons, help people communicate where words have failed, raising their confidence, self-esteem and sense of joy through music, one of the most powerful remedies that can't be bought from pharmaceutical companies. Music is medicine for the soul.

Info from The Guardian

“Play It Again, Sam”: How the Use of Music is Reawakening the Minds of Many Individuals Battling Dementia.

Written by Robert Maxwell, speech-Language pathologist

To say there has been a recent increase of videos on the web highlighting the power of music with individuals with dementia would be a vast understatement. From caregiver videos flooding YouTube to more carefully crafted films, such as Alive Inside, exploding on the scene, the individual stories being told are nothing short of remarkable.

But what does this mean for us as speech and language pathologists? And what does research say about the overwhelming number of anecdotal stories being touted on the internet? The answer to both questions is, A LOT! Many resources, such as the nonprofit organization MUSIC & MEMORY, now offer an extensive list of research citations that highlight the clinical benefits that listening to music can have on cognition and communication. It’s not just researchers taking notice of the mounting evidence. As the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services makes a push to decrease inappropriate use of antipsychotic drugs in long-term care settings, some of its efforts go toward funding personalized music programs to help address agitation and other behavioral concerns in a non-pharmacological way. Many states are also embracing this approach with great clinical outcomes to report.

So do we all switch professions and become music therapists? Of course not. The need for skilled speech therapists to directly target cognitive-linguistic deficits in long-term care settings is more important now than ever as the aging of our population and the dramatic rise in dementing illness converge, but the research and these dramatic personal stories should make us take pause and reconsider the environments in which we practice. As therapists we have a unique opportunity and perspective to be client advocates.

What information can we share, what videos can we show and whose life can we touch to be a catalyst for change in our communities? Consider your impact and take action today. Still need convincing? Let me leave you with one final image. Watch as Naomi Feil, founder of Validation Therapy, makes a power connection with Ms. Gladys Wilson. I wonder how many speech therapy screen forms were sitting in her medical chart stating she was “non-communicative” when this was filmed. 

Info from blog.ASHA

Como a música pode melhorar a saúde

Usada como terapia, a música é capaz de melhorar a concentração, alterar o estado de espírito e ajudar a combater algumas doenças.

O Daily Mail reuniu alguns dos mais recentes estudos que comprovam o quão poderosa pode ser a música na saúde e na mente. Algumas melodias possuem efeitos mais notórios do que outros, mas a verdade é que a música é já usada como terapia no combate ou cura de determinadas doenças, especialmente psicológicas.

Em 2008, escreve a publicação, o Centro Médico da Universidade de Maryland, nos Estados Unidos, concluiu que a música, principalmente a clássica, consegue ajudar na redução da pressão sanguínea. Músicas agradáveis conseguem deixar o sangue mais fluído em 26%, enquanto sons relaxantes apenas o fazem em 11%.

Mas se há músicas com efeitos benéficos, existem compositores capazes de autênticos milagres. Conta o Daily Mail que um estudo sueco de 2005 revelou que os pacientes operados a uma hérnia que ouviram música durante a cirurgia tiveram menos dores no pós-operatório. Mas Bach e Louis Armstrong conseguem resultados ainda mais notórios: uma investigação de 2011 indica que estes dois grandes nomes da música ajudam a que sejam dados menores doses de anestesia em determinadas cirurgias, incluindo a de colocação de próteses na anca.

Dois anos depois, um outro estudo relacionou a música com o combate à demência. Tese reforçada com uma investigação de 2013, que concluiu que os doentes com demência que ouviam música como forma de terapia tinham menos necessidade de tomar antidepressivos ou outro tipo de medicamentos.

O coração e a música são também dois bons aliados, como indica um estudo que revela que algumas canções “melhoram a variação dos batimentos cardíacos” e reduzem os riscos de ataque cardíaco. Além disso, um estudo da Western University, no Canadá, indica que a música é capaz de acelerar a recuperação de AVCs.

Há três anos, uma investigação publicada no Journal of Nursing Studies revela que as músicas relaxantes são a melhor forma de adormecer depressa e manter uma noite tranquila de sono.

Mas não é só ouvir música que faz bem. Conta o Daily Mail que cantar pode ajudar a combater a asma, uma vez que permite melhorar a respiração e aprender quais os limites de cada pessoa.

Fonte: Notícias ao minuto

Childhood depression maybe cured by music therapy

In the largest ever research of its kind, the scientists have found that music therapy can be a possible cure for depression in children and adolescents having behavioural and emotional troubles.

The study, conducted by the researchers at Queen’s University Belfast along with the Northern Ireland Music Therapy Trust, found that children or teens who received the music therapy treatment showed remarkable improvements in their self-esteem and also reduced their depression symptoms significantly as compared to those who were deprived of the music therapy treatment.

During the study, the researchers also found that those depressed kids who received music therapy had also improved their communicative and interactive skills as compared to those who received usual care options alone.

The research work was conducted between the period March 2011 and May 2014 and involved 251 children and young people who were divided into two groups. The first group included 128 people who were given the usual care options and the second one that involved 123 participants who were also getting an additional music therapy treatment along with the usual care.

All the participants were getting treatment for the emotional, developmental and behavioural problems. The early findings suggested towards the benefits of music therapy that are sustained in the long term.

Dr Valerie Holmes, Centre for Public Health, School of Medicine, Dentistry and Biomedical Sciences and co-researcher, “This is the largest study ever to be carried out looking at music therapy’s ability to help this very vulnerable group, and is further evidence of how Queen’s University is advancing knowledge and changing lives.”

Ciara Reilly, Chief Executive of the Northern Ireland Music Therapy Trust, said, “Music therapy has often been used with children and young people with particular mental health needs, but this is the first time its effectiveness has been shown by a definitive randomized controlled trial in a clinical setting.”

Concluding the study, Reilly said that the findings are dramatic and underline the requirement for music therapy as a mainstream treatment option for the patients suffering from the stress and depression problems.

Written by James Kent at Wall Street OTC 

Music has the power to heal

There is an old belief, now being revisited, that music has the power to heal. Where does this idea come from, and how does it apply to traditional Chinese music?

"Our ancestors believed that music had the power to harmonize a person’s soul in ways that medicine could not. In ancient China, one of music’s earliest purposes was for healing. The Chinese word, or character, for medicine actually comes from the character for music.

During the time of the Great Yellow Emperor (2698-2598 B.C.E.), people discovered the relationship between the pentatonic scale, the five elements, and the health five internal and five sensory organs. During Confucius time, scholars used music’s calming properties to improve strengthen people’s character and conduct. 

Today, scientific research has also validated music’s therapeutic ability to lower blood pressure, reduce anxiety, enhance concentration, stabilize heart rate, and more."

 Gao Yuan 

You can find the whole interview with Shen Yun Symphony Orchestra Composer Gao Yuan here

Speech-Language Therapy and Music Therapy Collaboration: The Dos, the Don’ts, and the “Why Nots?” - part I

Definition of collaboration: “The process of working jointly with others in an intellectual endeavor to bring about change, and it implies shared responsibility” 

As the number of cases of children being identified with communication disorders increases, so does the need for cost effective treatment. Therefore, many therapists are looking to collaboration and co-treatment as a way to meet this need. This is evidenced by a recent survey of 695 music therapists, as 44.6% said they collaborate with SLPs (Register, 2002).

Why utilize inter-, trans-, or multi-disciplinary collaboration between music therapy and speech therapy?

*It benefits the client’s overall well-being

*It is cost effective

*Language and music are structurally similar in many ways

5 similarities between music and language:

* Music and Language are universal and specific to humans;

* Both have pitch, timbre, rhythm, and durational features;

* Spontaneous speech and spontaneous singing typically develop within infants at approximately the same time;

* Music and language have auditory, vocal, and visual uses (both use written systems) and are built on structure and rules;

* Distinct forms of music and language exist and vary across cultures.

When You Collaborate with the Other Therapist:

Do…

…Communicate with one another on how to best address the needs of the client and what music interventions can be used to enhance and support communication areas the SLP is addressing with the client.

…Co-Treat!

…Collaborate on goal development (find a time that will work for both of you – even if it’s just for 10-15 minutes a week!). If meeting in person does not seem to work, try other technologies, such as email correspondence, using Skype, Twitter, or an instant messaging program. This may work better for both of your schedules.

…Understand your limits (do not overstep your professional training bounds)

…Have a clear understanding of the other profession’s scope of practice. MTs should look at the ASHA scope of practice and SLPs need to be aware of the CBMT scope of practice. By doing this, the professionals can avoid conflict, confusion, and misunderstandings.

…Understand each profession’s strengths and areas of training

…Educate yourself on the lingo of the other field (healthcare professions LOVE annoying, hard-to-remember acronyms)

…Be flexible!

…Share information with one another: therapy news articles, ideas, pamphlets, research papers, etc.

…Communicate, Communicate, Communicate!

References:

- American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA). (n.d.). Standards and implementation procedures for the certificate of clinical competence. 

- Cohen, N. S. (1994). Speech and song: Implications for therapy. Music Therapy Perspectives, 12(1), 8-14.

- Miller, S. (1982). Music therapy for handicapped children: Speech impaired. Project Monograph Series. Washington, DC: National Association for Music Therapy.

- Peters, J. S. (2000). Music therapy for individuals who have communication disorders or impairments. In Music therapy: An introduction (2nd ed., pp.170-188). Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas Publisher.

- Register, D. (2002). Collaboration and consultation: A survey of board certified music therapists. Journal of Music Therapy, 39(4), 305-321.

- Rychener-Hobson, M. (2006). The Collaboration of Music Therapy and Speech-Language Pathology in the Treatment of Neurogenic Communication Disorders: Part II — Collaborative Strategies and Scope of Practice. Music Therapy Perspectives, 24(2), 66-72.

- Zoller, M. (1991). Use of music activities in speech-language therapy. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 22.

Info written by Rachel See Smith, from Explore Music Therapy

Music Therapy, What does it Look Like and How Does it Work?

While surfing the Internet I found this amazing explanation by a Music Therapist:

Written by Antoinette Morrison, BackMountainMusicTherapy

"Often, people who have not previously heard of Music Therapy hear that I am a Music Therapist and ask “So, what do you do? Play music to them?” (My clients). I think we are so accustomed to teaching methods that something other than that such as facilitating is hard to conceptualize.

Because music is structure over time, what one may see in my therapy room is not what some people may expect. It certainly does not look like a classroom scenario. In fact, upon walking by, glancing in, it may look unstructured or chaotic. A child may be hopping up and down or running back and forth screaming. So what is going on? How can this be therapeutic?

Any good therapist begins where a client is, and all behavior (once again) is communication. I may not know why my client jumps or screams but what I do know is that they are communicating something about themselves. I mirror musically anything they do. I do this to play back to them, giving them a musical portrait of themselves. It may not be by typical standards what you would consider “beautiful” music.

This a simple musical motif or phrase, something that the client is already doing or communicating that is not only being reflected back but being given structure through the rhythm. What is the point of that you may ask.

(...)

When a child can come in with what seems like chaos and have it fit into a structure (rhythm) just as the chaos exists (jumping, screaming, running) and it is okay as it is, we have the beginnings and basis for reciprocity. Life begins and development occurs with the give and take, the back and forth of relationship. What is it that these kids need most?

Music is the universal language. Music’s rhythm and repetition provides structural and predictable basis for reciprocity. Sound is vibration which does not make even hearing a necessary must in order for the brain to process music.. In other words music can be open enough to include the ornamental chaos and predictable enough to give it structural basis for back and forth relating."

Music Therapy for Children with Language Impairments

“I would teach children music, physics, and philosophy; but most importantly music, for the patterns in music and all the arts are the keys to learning.”

Plato

 

Music as a therapeutic intervention is effective in healthcare and educational settings for children and adults. Music interventions can promote wellness, improve communication, and engage cognitive functioning. Children who had received musical training were shown to have improved speech segmentation abilities, according to research published in the journal Cerebral Cortex.

 

Speech segmentation is the process of identifying boundaries between words and syllables, and the ability to extract words from continuous speech. Recent research has found that musical expertise facilitates speech segmentation in adults. Musicians were shown to score better in both musical and linguistic tests compared to non-musicians. The results from this study were taken as evidence that musical training facilitates improved speech abilities, and led researchers to examine whether there is a similar correlation between music and children with learning impairments.

 

In this study, a longitudinal measurement was designed to follow 8-year-old non-musician children over the course of two school years. Children were enrolled into three experiment groups; none of them had been involved in music or painting lessons before or during the study. One of the experimental groups consisted of painting lessons rather than musical training to understand whether music training had any advantage in improving speech abilities.

 

Each group went through an initial “test session,” in which participants listened to 5 minutes of a sung artificial language. After listening to the song, participants were presented with two spoken items and were asked to decide which item sounded more familiar. One group of children were assigned to music and the other to painting classes for 45 minutes, twice a week in year one and once a week in year two.

 

Music training was shown to improve children’s speech segmentation abilities while children in the painting group did not exhibit improved abilities. The findings are important in understanding children’s language development, because speech segmentation is one of the building blocks of language acquisition.

 

Parents and teachers should consider the implications musical training has as a therapeutic method for children and the encouragement it can provide in the acquisition of new skills.

 

Journal reference: François, Clément, Julie Chobert, Mireille Besson, and Daniele Schön. 2013. “Music Training for the Development of Speech Segmentation.” Cerebral Cortex 23(9):2038–43.

Arts proven to combat Alzheimers

A soon-to-be-published study, Reawakening the Mind, has confirmed that the mind-body benefit of artistic stimulation. UK organisation Arts 4 Dementia offers statistical proof of the transforming power of the arts in treating patients suffering from memory loss. This latest discovery affirms the health benefits of arts therapies when applied to early dementia sufferers.

A sample group of 41 early dementia sufferers, aged between 66 and 91, participated in workshops in music, drama, poetry, dance, photography and painting. The study assessed the effectiveness of each arts activity in improving cognitive function and wellbeing. Enhanced cognitive ability, stress relief, and a decrease in memory problems were just some of the reported benefits. With each individual participating in at least one activity, the 93 assessments were condensed into the following heartening findings:

• 94% of people with dementia were energised, unstressed, happy and alert for at least 24 hours after an arts session.
• 89% claimed to feel more confident.
• 84% of people with dementia recognised that they had learned new skills.

As a result of the sessions 97% of patients recognised that creative activity overrides memory worries and an impressive 99% of participants planned to develop their art further.

Results of the evaluation, overseen by Professor Paul Camic, Professor of Psychology and Public Health at Canterbury Christ Church University, indicated many positive effects for people with early dementia. “The results from this large-scale evaluation of many different arts-based projects strongly support that participating in the arts in group settings – in different ways and through different media – benefit people with dementia, the people who care for them, and the organisations that offer these programmes, in a significant and profound way”, he reported.

While visual arts generated the greatest immediate sense of achievement it was music and dance that demonstrated a significantly longer energising effect than other art forms, with the results concluding that art practices can combat many of the most difficult effects of early dementia. The results also suggest that arts activity can delay onset.

Reawakening the Mind is one of the first studies to develop a multiple art form model of stimulation activities for people in the early stages of dementia. Arts 4 Dementia Chief Executive, Veronica Franklin Gould, says: “Once dementia has set in, the creative part of the brain can continue to function for many more years and artistic stimulation is a powerful, sociable way to open up communication channels.”

Whilst acknowledging the need for training accreditation in these fields, Arts 4 Dementia are calling on arts organisations to provide practitioners and appealing to doctors to recommend arts activities for patients upon diagnosis.

Info at LimeLight

Beamz: Interactive Music System

Beamz is an innovative and fun musical instrument that enables special needs kids and individuals of all ages to interactively create and play music. It is a great tool in a variety of special needs and rehabilitation applications, most notably including physical and recreational therapy with children and senior citizens, building inspiration without discouragement.

Beamz is universally designed so it is accessible to students of all learning and physical abilities—it’s switch accessible too! Beamz’ versatility in its application context is unmatched—you can work on cognition, processing, sequencing, cause and effect, motor skills, memory, literacy, math concepts, collaboration, music therapy, music education and so much more. Or, you can simply leverage its “cool factor” to engage students and reward productivity.

How it works?

Performance

Info from The Beamz

Alive Inside

Alzheimer’s and dementia are a reality for an increasing and often unseen population. Though well intentioned, many nursing homes are not equipped to fully meet the needs of these residents. We are left with several questions without any real or comforting answers: How do I want to age? What can we do for our loved ones? Can we do better?

Alive Inside investigates these questions and the power music has to awaken deeply locked memories. The film follows Dan Cohen, a social worker, who decides on a whim to bring iPods to a nursing home. To his and the staff’s surprise many residents suffering from memory loss seem to “awaken” when they are able to listen to music from their past. With great excitement, Dan turns to renowned neurologist Dr. Oliver Sacks, and we follow them both as we investigate the mysterious way music functions inside our brains and our lives.

Besides telling a moving story, it is our hope that this film will encourage widespread adoption of personalized music programs in nursing homes and outpatient therapy in homes. We hope that our film will inspire and educate the millions of people burdened by diseases that affect memory, and create a grassroots demand for this kind of low cost treatment, which could help not only patients but also caregivers across the globe. Like many films that concentrate on a simple story but echo into larger stories, we feel this film raises questions about how we as a society care for the elderly and afflicted.

Alive Inside focuses on one man’s journey, but it raises many deep questions about what it means to still be Alive Inside. It questions when we stop being human, and what it takes to re-start a life that has faded away. It asks questions about how we see our elderly, and how we are going to treat an epidemic of these degenerative diseases.

Info from Alive Inside

The Benefits of Drumming

This article was taking from Back Mountain Music Therapy

"The wonderful thing about a drum is that there are no wrong notes. This makes playing successful to anyone who tries it. Who would ever think that giving some drums to a small group of chaotic, unfocused, hyper children could actually pull their attention together and help increase their social skills. 

Knowing that children automatically speed up and automatically want to bang away as soon as they get the drums, stir some doubts. But with careful management, the magnetic pull of a good beat pulls our brains in its direction. Watch a classroom move in sync as a good beat is pumped into the room. Most all children will move in one way or another. They may all move in a different way, but their movement and attention is pulled to the same direction at once. All are moving at the same time: they can’t help it. Doing this in a fun, game-like way is much easier than trying to “teach” them how to follow a beat or pay attention. “Teaching” requires too much attention on “getting it right,” while playing puts us all on automatic. 

When children are all beating together, the social skill possibilities are endless; impulse control, attending, focus, listening to others, sequencing, turn-taking, and the list keeps going. Drumming in this way build self-confidence and self esteem and allows safe nonverbal communication. Drumming in this manner simultaneously raises the level, focuses, and contains the children.

The added plus to the scenario is that it leaves little room for interruption and will likely continue in their head after the session ends. Rhythm now creates organization, actually changing a neurological pathway and helping the child focus.

There are also children who have such poor fine motor skills they can barely hold a drumstick. Many of these children who are slower at developing these skills are pulled so by the beat that they continue to try until they gradually get there. I have often seen children who begin poking a drum occasionally with the wrong end of a drumstick because of such fine motor delay, hat within one or two sessions are pulled so by the pulse they they are using an alternating hand pattern and beating the drum the right way with delight. Some of the children’s muscles that are too rigid and tight to beat a drum find that an accompanying beat pulls their bodies and arms to move in the direction of the beat with significantly greater ease.

Drumming helps us get out of our own heads. Drumming gets us to play. We are moved to play through the pulsating rhythm. It can not only facilitate physical, but also emotional, cognitive, and neurological change. Playing a beat, coming in the back door, effecting change."

by Antoinette

Nursing home patient reacts to music

In this amazing video an unresponsive nursing home patient reacts to hearing music that he loved from his era. Previously hunched over, his eyes widen, his whole being "quickens". He recalls who he is and how his favorite songs were sung.

The nursing home music program hopes to transform the lives of residents — especially those experiencing dementia — by giving them their favorite music. 

The clip below is part of a documentary called Alive Inside, which follows social worker Dan Cohen as he creates personalized playlists for people in elder care facilities, hoping to reconnect them with the music they love, reports NPR News.

Cohen says the YouTube video of Henry is a great example of the link between music and memory. Cohen says his goal is "to make access to personalized music the standard of care at nursing facilities."

Alive Inside screens April 18, 20 and 21 at the Rubin Museum in New York City.

Text adapted from GoodNewsNetwork

Music and Dyslexia

Learning to play a musical instrument may help students with dyslexia. A study completed at Stanford University [Musical Training Helps Language Processing, Studies Show, 2005, Stanford News Service]. The study showed that mastering a musical instrument improves the ability to process parts of the spoken language. The researchers believe that additional research might develop a way to use the knowledge obtained in the study to increase language development for individuals with dyslexia or cognitive disorders.

Studies Show Music Helps Increase Test Scores and Language Skills

While there have been other studies that have shown the relationship of music to increased IQ [Music and the Mind, Music From the Inside Out, PBS] or to increased standardized tests and SAT scores [Music and Literacy, 1999, The Association for Music Education], this is the first study that has shown a direct correlation to mastering a musical instrument and learning the spoken language.

Music Therapists, however, often include Learning Disabilities in their list of conditions helped by music therapy. Music Therapy is sometimes included in a child’s IEP (Individualized Educational Plan) as a way to help improve communication skills and to improve physical coordination. The Learning Disability Association of America encourages parents and teachers to include music to improve early reading skills.

Parents and Teachers Can Help Incorporate Music into Learning

Teachers and parents can incorporate music into everyday learning to help children with dyslexia and other learning disabilities to improve school performance and increase reading and writing skills. Tunes to popular children’s songs, such as “Mary Had a Little Lamb” or “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” can be used a the basis for learning math facts and formulas or grammar rules. By using familiar songs, children can hum to themselves while completing homework or taking a test, reminding themselves of the facts or the rules they must follow. This method is not limited to younger children, even high school and college students can benefit from using familiar tunes to remember facts for exams.

New Horizons for Learning lists specific ways music can help students succeed:

• Students can learn to break a word into syllables by clapping or tapping for each syllable.
• Students can use rhymes or songs to learn grammar lessons, such as “I before E except after C”
• Students can learn spelling words or history facts by putting the information to music.
• Students can improve listening skills by listening to short songs and writing the lyrics down.
• Songs from different eras and cultures can help students to learn history and social studies and improve their understanding of the many different cultures around the world.
• Math classes can be enhanced by using clapping or rhythms to improve understanding of patterns and sequences.
• Multiplication facts can be learned by setting them to music.

Info from Music-helps-children-with-dyslexia

Jovem autista expressa-se através da música

Kyle Coleman, 26 anos, de Gwithian, Cornwall, foi diagnosticado com autismo aos três anos de idade e sempre se expressou apenas através de algumas palavras. O seu talento musical foi descoberto quando a sua mãe, Caroline, o levou para uma sessão de musicoterapia em 2009.

A musicoterapeuta Carine Kelley descobriu que a música constitui um meio instintivo e eficaz através do qual Kyle consegue expressar suas emoções e, desde então, visita-o duas vezes por semana. 

"Tornou-se quase imediatamente claro que Kyle tinha uma afinidade natural com elementos musicais e poderia recriar suas canções favoritas no teclado sem um conhecimento musical prévio", disse ela.

"A sua personalidade e emoções brilham através de seu canto e desta forma foi-nos possível desenvolver uma relação especial e explorar as capacidades do Kyle."

Depois de se aperceber do dom do seu filho, Caroline levou-o a um estúdio de gravação em Plymouth, para ver como ele reagia neste contexto. Revelando-de destemido perante a nova experiência, Kyle gravou sua canção favorita, "Monday, Monday" do grupo "The Mamas and Papas". O proprietário do estúdio ficou tão impressionado com o talento de Kyle que sugeriu a gravação de um álbum de caridade. E assim foi!

A sua mãe disse: "Nunca houve um álbum gravado e lançado por um indivíduo autista que tem uma linguagem muito limitada e uma incapacidade para se comunicar com os outros." 

"O seu pai era músico e morreu há dois anos Num acidente de moto. Eu acho que o talento musical de Kyle vem do pai."

O albúm é constituído por várias covers de Robbie Williams, Cat Stevens e Razorlight e inclui também uma música que foi escrita especialmente para ele, relativa ao autismo. O álbum foi apoiado pela National Autistic Society (NAS) e  lançado no dia 2 de Abril de 2012 (Dia Mundial do Autismo).

Notícia [em inglês] acedida em DailyMail

Hydraulophone - let's make music with water!

A hydraulophone or poseidophone  is a tonal acoustic musical instrument played by direct physical contact with water (sometimes other fluids) where sound is generated or affected hydraulically. In the first sense, it was invented and named by Steve Mann.

The hydraulophone combines the simplicity of the piano with the interface of the tin flute or recorder. You play it by stopping the jets of water with your fingers or hands. By blocking multiple jets you can even play chords. 
In other words, it works like a woodwind instrument, except the wind is replaced by water. Can you imagine it's potencial in the music therapy field?

More info at FUNtain