Spring has sprung here in Pennsylvania! When I lived in Miami, it was hard to tell the difference between the "seasons." It was either hot or hotter, rainy or more rainy. I am thoroughly enjoying watching the transformation of Winter into Spring as I take my morning walks now, and love incorporating Spring-y vibes into [...]
Happy New Year! Things have turned chilly here in Pennsylvania. We have a snow storm on it's way at the end of this weekend, which means my kiddos will inevitably have a snow day on Monday! 'Tis the season of an erratic school schedule. Nonetheless, I have big plans for later on in January - [...]
Holiday season is in full swing over here (our Christmas tree is up and in my sessions we are singing ALL the holiday songs). 🌟 Nonetheless, I am peeking ahead to 2025. How about you? I've had several people reach out and ask about joining one of the Wholesome Harmonies E-Courses. Though these courses are currently [...]
How's your summer been going? So far, my kiddos have done tennis camp and music camp. We've sprinkled in lots of pool time, play dates, and even some blueberry picking, (followed by blueberry pancakes for dinner, which I highly recommend!) In addition to these fun summer outings, I've also been busy here on the blog. [...]
This summer, I started a Session Sneak Peek Series, where I give you a sneak peek into some of my sessions with tweens and teens with autism and related disabilities. I always love to see what other music therapists are up to, and I thought you might too! Last week, I gave you a peek [...]
I don't know about you, but I love to take a peek at what other music therapists are doing, especially if they work with a similar population as I do (middle and high schoolers with autism and related disabilities). It helps give me some fresh ideas, which are sometimes needed after nearly TWENTY YEARS in [...]
Musical Games are some of the most used musical experiences in my repertoire when I work with teens in music therapy. SO MANY therapeutic goals can be worked into musical games: Auditory perception goals in Name That Tune, Social communication goals in Musical BINGO, and Academic goals in Musical Spacemen (Hangman), just to name a [...]
One of the key things I've learned when it comes to working with teens in music therapy is that the very first step is building rapport. If we are asking them to sing, if we are asking them to be vulnerable and to share about their lives, if we are asking them to do hard [...]
I used to start all my music therapy sessions with teens the same way I would start my sessions with kids - a Hello song. I cringe now because for many of the teen clients I worked with, I think this made them feel like a child. This was definitely not my intent. My intent [...]
When working with tweens and teens, I try to incorporate popular and client preferred music into my sessions as much as possible. This immediately helps engage them and gets them excited about the musical experience. In this post and this post, I highlight how I make my movement experiences totally age appropriate for my teen [...]
