One of the primary things I keep top of mind, when planning my sessions for teens, is age appropriateness. It's top of mind for me because I understand how tricky planning age appropriate experiences can sometimes be, and it's something I get emails from other music therapists about all the time. We may work with [...]
In music therapy, the music is what we use to captivate and engage our clients so they can work on attention goals, social goals, communication goals, or whatever the goal areas might be. But as music therapists, we have to find and use the music that our clients actually like. That music might be Drake, [...]
Last week I shared a new song, "Let's Stay In The Green Zone," that I had written for a student who receives consult music therapy services. Today, I want to share a second song I wrote, called "Today I Will," to help this student stay in the Green Zone of Regulation (meaning they are calm, [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
Have you struggled to come up with cool and engaging virtual ideas for your school-age and teens clients? I know I have. The other day, I just kind of sat and stared at a blank Word document. I wondered - what can I do that is novel and interesting for them? I always come back [...]
“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 [...]
Making music therapy sessions and classes "cool" for our tween and teen clients can be tricky. In my last blog post, I shared one of my favorite ways to instantly up the cool factor on our musical experiences for teens. It's a simple technique, but can make a huge difference in whether your clients say [...]
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 [...]