Often this time of year, if you go to a Christmas party there is music playing in the background to enhance the mood. If you go to a concert, there are two parts: the audience and the performers. Although most everyone’s focus is the same, depending on the concert types, there are performers playing, singing,… Read more »
Year: 2013
School, Cognitive Skill, and Relatability
I do not know if many other Music Therapists share this dilemma with me, but often when I see a client or child that is referred for a particular reason and time goes by and the need becomes met, when the client continues to have needs that are not as flashing red-light obvious, I begin… Read more »
More on Mirror Neurons
After the Thanksgiving feast with friends and family and then our annual Black Friday shop-til-you-drop marathon, Saturday was time to get back to work. I was reading some fascinating comments after the last mirror neuron blog and some suggested articles from faithful readers when my first client arrived. With mirror neurons fresh on my mind,… Read more »
Music, Speech and Mirror Neurons
This week as I worked with my client, who was a victim of a brain injury, I was struck by the intensity of her watchfulness as we sang a children’s tune together, pronouncing letter sounds. When I see this client start to fade the specific mouth movements in singing words, I employ this song. Firstly,… Read more »
Music Therapy, What does it Look Like and How Does it Work?
In my area, Music Therapy is a service that is not well-known. 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… Read more »
Being Aware of What is Inside
Recently, my family got a dog from the SPCA. I began to think, a therapy dog might a nice compliment to my therapy business. I decided to take my new dog, Charlie, to a trainer. Upon arrival, the trainer told me he was going to teach me about how I conduct myself with the dog… Read more »
Avenues of Hope and Health
http://phdinspecialeducation.com/groups-activities/ This week I was thrilled to hear from Sarah Paulson, who notified me that Back Mountain Music Therapy would be featured in PhDinSpecialEducation.com. I was excited about the exposure of my business, but also grateful to be classified along with other businesses associated with the well-being of those in need of special education. It… Read more »
Jumping In
Recently, I have had clients make progress in the area of verbally relating to others. The two cases were completely different sets of circumstances, but both clients were headed towards similar areas of health. How is this possible? Most everything in life happens step-by-step. Most every change that we make ourselves in life that lasts… Read more »
Music Therapy – In Relationship
Last week I wrote about “The Jack in the Box Effect.” (https://backmountainmusictherapy.com/2013/10/music-play-recipe-to-override-developmental-delays/). This demonstrates how infants learn about the world and how to react to it by watching their mothers. The blog talked about 93% of communication being non verbal and only 7% being verbal. Usually, when engaged in my Music Therapy sessions, my… Read more »
Music + Play = Recipe to Override Developmental Delays
This weekend I attended a conference entitled “Considering Musical Dimensions in Relationship-Based Work” at Molloy College. All of what was presented there was relevant to all of my work and very timely for this portion of my blog on play, particularly the evidence presented by non-musical clinical developmental psychologist Dr. Gerry Costa from Montclair University…. Read more »