Month: December 2012

In this last part of the speech series, I decided to write about using Music Therapy in word retrieval problems, something I am finding myself running across frequently lately.  This is for the children who already have some controlled speech.  Some of the children can speak in one to three word sentences, but not at… Read more »

How do you know wen expressive language (speech) is too far off of a goal? I do not believe that when after a child can point, that is when they are motivated to speak. None of the young people I have worked with have ever reacted by gesturing, pointing, or signing first when at the… Read more »

Back to my mantra: watch the child. Let the child direct and the therapist/parent/teacher support. Even if they child is not giving sound, one can support movement or even breathing with sound. Repeated sound, as I had spoken about in the previous blog (https://backmountainmusictherapy.com/2012/12/where-to-start-control-of-oral-movements/), sometimes gives structure to a child’s irrelevant, chaotic, seemingly impulsive behavior…. Read more »

How does one go about exercising getting a child to exercise those oral muscles? Like everything else, start where the child is. The first response one may say is,”Where he is? He doesn’t do anything. He doesn’t even look at me.” As mentioned in the last blog https://backmountainmusictherapy.com/2012/11/5-part-series-music-and-speech/), precursors to speech are attentiveness, eye contact,… Read more »