In addition to offering music therapy services, another thing I love to do is offer adapted music lessons to children and teens with ASD. I've been teaching piano lessons to a teen and recently was starting to feel stuck with the lesson book. Plugging through it week after week was becoming a bit dry. Have you [...]
What pop songs are you digging right now? Currently I'm loving "Can't Stop the Feeling" by Justin Timberlake and "Try Everything" by Shakira. Anyone else? Sometimes it can be really hard to find songs that we can bring into our music therapy sessions. In my case, they need to fit the following criteria: Have "appropriate" lyrics & [...]
The ink has barely dried on my Beach Themed blog posts and already I'm realizing people are posting first day of school pics of their kids. That can only mean one thing - it's back to school time! Looks like it's time to shift gears. I'm excited, though, because at the end of August I'll be [...]
'The lazy days of summer are here." Whoever came up with that saying has not met a music therapist in private practice! Although we may tend to have a lighter caseload when clients are out of town, it seems there is never a shortage of things to do. One thing I'm doing this summer is [...]
Friendship Circle is one of my favorite programs to work with. It is an incredible organization that provides services for children and teens with autism, as well as the opportunity for them to make friends and work on social skills in a supportive environment. I work with Friendship Circle by providing group music therapy services for [...]
It's not always easy to find songs that are: a) considered "cool" by the teens I work and b) able to be used therapeutically. I know because this year I've spent countless hours listening to songs and watching videos on YouTube. Sometimes it's slim pickings. But, a few weeks ago I came back to a song [...]
Did you grab your FREEBIES yet? I'm talking about the Rap Track MP3 & PDF of the Friendship Rap that you can use in your sessions with elementary or middle school students, or with teens. I love sharing the new ideas that I come up with and test out in my sessions. What I love [...]
It can be TOUGH to find pop songs that are "appropriate" for our teen music therapy sessions. I get it. There are drug references, sexual innuendos and curse words in many of the new songs out now. When I'm looking for songs that are "appropriate," I'm looking for songs that are free of inappropriate language and [...]
Before I launch into today's blog post, I want to give a huge THANK YOU to those of you who took the "better blog survey" I sent out. Sara Devine was the winner randomly chosen to receive a free E-Book - The Rap Pack for Teens! I appreciate your survey responses so much and [...]
In my last blog post, I started a brand new series on how to AMP UP your teen music therapy sessions. I love using fresh, new ideas in my sessions, so I'm happy to share what's worked well with my tween & teen groups. Today, I want to share a musical game I created called the ABCs [...]
