In preparation for Earth Day, my girls and I have been jamming to “The 3 Rs” by Jack Johnson ALL week. (My little one asked me to put it on repeat!) So today I wanted to share how I’ve been celebrating Earth Day in the music therapy sessions I've facilitated this week: We started off [...]
Recently, I moved from Miami up north and started working virtually at a school in Maryland. I provide group, individual, and consult music therapy services for their middle and high school students with autism and related disabilities (which I absolutely love doing). During the consult for one student who has music therapy on their IEP, the [...]
When it comes to creating musical experiences for my school age clients, here's how it typically goes: As soon as I know the goal I'm targeting (typically a goal in the attention and perception realm, since those skills translate directly into having success in the classroom and a work environment), my immediate next step is [...]
In a previous blog post, I shared one of my favorite brand new ideas (for either virtual or in-person learning) - Hip Hop Meets Classical. If you haven't checked out that post, do it now! It is sure to be a hit with your school-age and teen clients (and is also a great way to [...]
“Hip Hop meets Classical” This simple search on YouTube led me to find some neat videos and create a brand new musical experience that was pretty cool for my teen clients. Many of them are working on improving their attention and auditory perception skills. So, their task was this - Listen closely to the hip [...]
Wow has it been a LONG time since I've written a new post! I had to look back and see that it was at the end of July that I last published a blog post. I hope you'll excuse me. It has been quite a whirlwind summer: My family and I moved from Miami, FL [...]
We are more than halfway through summer, which feels unbelievable. Weren't we just celebrating the last day of school?! Recently, I've been enjoying Hawaiian/summer/beach-themed sessions with my middle school students and teen clients. I always enjoy a good theme, and this one in particular makes me feel relaxed and happy. Maybe it's the colorful lei [...]
My kiddos are now 4 and 7 and I have learned a thing or two about parenting in that time (still learning though!) As I was leading a group music therapy session online earlier this week, something struck me. Much of what I've learned as a parent frequently comes into play in my music therapy [...]
One thing I hear very often from music therapists and educators who work with teens is that they have trouble finding musical experiences that are considered "cool" by their clients and students. I can relate 100%. I worked with children for so long that it was hard to crawl out of that headspace and create [...]
One of the services I love sharing about most with parents is our adapted music lessons. Many parents tell me their child with autism loves music and wants to learn piano, but they tried with a "traditional" music teacher and it did not go well. Our adapted lessons are unique in that they're taught by [...]
