A few months ago (November to be exact!) I received a phone call from AmericaTeve, a Miami-based Spanish language news station.

They were presenting a series on autism and wanted to close that series with a piece on autism and music therapy.

They asked if they could come interview me and videotape me working with a client during a music therapy session.

As nervous as that made me (I speak un poquito de español), I said yes and I’m so happy I did!

The story came out beautifully.

Even if you don’t speak Spanish, watch here and you can certainly get a feel for what’s being communicated in this story:

Thanks for watching!

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Happy Social Media Advocacy Month!

What an exciting month it was been so far! Last week, Ben Folds declared it #FollowMTWeek and has been surprising and delighting us with tweets and Facebook posts galore. (He even tweeted and posted THIS BLOG POST to his Facebook page!!)

This year, the theme for Social Media Advocacy Month is connection.

The stories that come to mind are the connections I have made with other therapeutic disciplines and the connections that have been made by the children I work with when music therapy is “added to the mix.”

I have the privilege of working in a preschool early intervention program and charter school for children with special needs, Early Beginnings Academy (part of UCP Miami). At Early Beginnings, I co-treat with occupational therapy (OT), physical therapy (PT) and speech therapy (ST).

Each time I co-treat a connection is formed, bridging music therapy to the other disciplines.

These co-treatments allow me to see how how these disciplines can inform our practice as music therapists and provide us with sound ideas, but they also allow me to see how music therapy can truly support OT/PT/ST activities.

Here are some of my stories of connection…

Music therapy and Occupational therapy

Last year I took part in a music therapy/OT co-treatment with two boys with Autism Spectrum Disorder. The OT showed me one of the experiences she often uses with her children with ASD – jumping on the trampoline and then “crashing” onto a water bed. This activity is used to provide kinesthetic and proprioceptive input for children who are sensory-seeking. I observed her facilitating this activity and brainstormed how I could “add” music to the mix.

In this experience, music could function as an organizer for the activity AND I could use certain musical elements to cue the child’s behavior.

When I jumped in we had the child stand up on the trampoline and wait for me. I strummed a slow V7 chord (a dominant chord filled with anticipation) as I sang “Aaaaaand….” Then moved to the I chord as I sang “Go!! I want to jump, jump, jump, up and down! I want to jump, jump, jump, up and down.” While singing this, I played a steady, rhythmic slap strum to cue the movement of jumping up and down. Then I strummed the V7 chord again slowly while singing “Aaaaaand crash!!” That was the child’s cue to take their last jump on the trampoline and “crash” on to the water bed.

Here’s how the music is working:

The musical form provides clear structure to organize this experience. (The child knows they will jump for the whole first verse…and then it will be time to crash). The V7 chord cues the child to start jumping and cues the child to crash. The lyrics cue each different movement (jump, crash). The rhythmic beat provides organization and grounds the experience, and the tempo tells the child how fast to be jumping. All these musical elements work together to create an experience that is appropriate for the child and one that is clear even without verbal cueing: the music does the cueing!

(Would you like to see videos of my OT co-treatment sessions? They will be part of my course coming soon to MusicTherapyEd.com!!)

Music therapy and Speech therapy

I have also participated in a music therapy/ST co-treatment where we used a modified version of Rhythmic Speech Cueing to facilitate the child speaking in a complete sentence. We hit the drum one time for each word in the sentence: “My name is Amy.” Hitting the drum one time for each word ensures that the child clearly speaks each word in the sentence (rather than saying “My name Amy” – sometimes it’s easy to leave out “is”!). The motor movement (playing the drum) also serves to cue the speech output (singing/speaking the sentence).

You can watch this video here!

I have also modified this activity during music therapy/ST co-treatments to work on clear articulation of each syllable in a given word. The child would be instructed to hit the drum one time for each syllable of the word “hi-ppo-po-ta-mus” for example.

These examples are some of my favorites to use when telling others about the connection between music therapy and other therapeutic disciplines. Just as OTs, PTs, and SLPs give us ideas for activities and goals in their discipline, we as music therapists can demonstrate how music can structure and organize an experience. We can also show how specific musical elements can cue behaviors and speech output.

Working together with shared goals in mind improves our skills as clinicians and improves the experience and outcome for the children with whom we work.

Do you co-treat with other therapeutic disciplines? What are your stories of connection? Leave a comment below…

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As music therapists, we are constantly advocating for our profession throughout the year. Now there is a dedicated month for Music Therapy Advocacy – January! Last year, I wrote my first blog on music therapy advocacy and am excited to start working on my blog post for this year.

Here’s how YOU can get in on the action:

1) Tweet up #FollowMTWeek

Ben Folds has created #FollowMTWeek on Twitter – how cool is that? Make sure you tweet him up using that hashtag and show him some love. My Twitter feed is already exploding with this hashtag!

2) Join the AMTA/CBMT Social Media Advocacy Project spearheaded by Kimberly Sena Moore, Dena Register, and Judy Simpson

Here is the email outlining the details:

Hello fellow music therapy bloggers,

Thank you for your willingness to participate in this year’s joint AMTA/CBMT Social Media Advocacy project! We hope that this project will be mutually beneficial–not only are you helping to spread the word about music therapy advocacy, but we hope this project will generate more traffic to your blog. The information below outlines details for this project. Please review and let me know if you have any questions (ksmoore@cbmt.org).

Project Theme As indicated in the original email, the theme of this year’s social media advocacy project is based on the idea of connection, especially connecting with music therapy stories as told through different voices (e.g. music therapists, clients, family members, colleagues, etc.). Therefore we invite, even challenge you to collect client stories throughout the month of January. These can be through guest blog posts, blog comments, Twitter updates, Facebook comments, etc. Invite your audience to share their stories with you through whatever medium works best for you. When you are collecting stories, please ask for the state in which the story occurred (no other identifying information is needed).

Writing the articles Just like last year, the primary content is completely up to you, your writing style, and your audience. Judy, Dena, and I are working on some “talking points”  to help inspire and/or organize your post next month. We will also include a “summary blurb” that we are hoping you will include somewhere in your blog article (i.e., at the beginning or the end). Don’t worry! It’s short–only a paragraph. We will send you that file within the first couple days of 2013, so stay tuned.

Timing your post You are welcome to publish one article or podcast episode in January or multiple ones, whatever works best with your editorial calendar and audience.

Promoting the project Part of our hope with this project is that it will help drive more traffic to your blog. With that in mind, we will work to promote your posts in various places, including:

• AMTA enews
• AMTA Facebook page
• AMTA Twitter account
• CBMT Facebook page
• Music Therapy Listserv
• Other listservs, such as any regional ones

In addition to using the #mtadvocacy Twitter hashtag from last year, we are creating a second one just for this project: #lovemusictherapy. We invite you to use these hashtags if you promote on Facebook and/or Twitter. Finally, it would help spread the word–and promote your fellow music therapy bloggers–if you would consider sharing this project and these articles with your friends, fans, and followers next month.

What we need from you To help make this project a success, here is what I will need from you throughout the month:

• When you have published your article or podcast episode, please send me the title and url.
• I will likely try to use pics on the promotion website. If you were involved in the project last year and want a DIFFERENT pic than what was used on this page (http://www.musictherapymaven.com/social-media-advocacy-month-2012/), please email me an alternative picture. If this is your first year being involved in this project, please email me a picture you would like used in the promotional materials.
• Although I will send reminders throughout the month, I will be asking you to forward to me (1) your favorite client stories, (2) the state in which the stories occurred, and (3) the total number of client stories you collected.

Wrap-Up I think that about covers it. Again, THANK YOU for your willingness to participate in this project! If you have any questions, please contact me at ksmoore@cbmt.org

I am so excited to see how social media has helped unite music therapists who are passionate about their work. Let’s see what we can do to advocate for music therapy this month and throughout the year!

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The Miami Herald
“Music Soothes Patients Young and Old”
March 1, 2012

The Miami Hurricane
“Students Take Tuneful Talents to Help Others” (page 2)
February 12, 2012

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