Went to my 1st support group mtg--

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Went to my 1st support group mtg--
3
Sun, 11-19-2006 - 1:17pm

The speaker was a neurologic music therapist. I thought it was very interesting.


There were fewer people there than normal, someone said.


The lady in charge Laura (not the speaker) had *lots* to say. I got there about 5 minutes after the 6:00 meeting was supposed to start, and she was still talking to her 4:00 group. They were talking about dietary, vitamin, absorption stuff.


Two of the ladies at the meeting were mad because their children had been denied music therapy, so there was lots of discussion about how to get their children something that could possibly help them a lot. Both of their children were non-verbal--one was 4 1/2 and one was 7.


Also, Laura gave me a newsletter with future meetings listed. I'm going to try to get my dh to go to the one about Behavior. Disciplining children is not his strong suit. Laura also highly recommended that we come to the dietary stuff meeting, but they are all on the same day, and I don't think I could there *all day long*. One meeting at a time for me.


iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Sun, 11-19-2006 - 3:09pm

I am glad it went well.

I love music therapy for the kids. It is VERY hard to get music therapy covered and most folks here have to pay out of pocket. It is ridiculus if you consider the amount of research behind it as well as the fact that it is listed in sped law and even our regional centers list it as a service.

I have been fighting here for a while for MT and we are slowly making progress. Mike has it as part of his IEP for 6 hours per year of consulting. They will likely end up doing more. The kids both had it last summer for 7 sessions. But we were the first and it is a slow process getting it going here.

In fact I am quite bummed. I ran into the kids summer music therapist at the ASA conference and she is leaving the area due to this. She just can't support herself in this area when it is so hard to get clients. Most can't afford it private pay. I know that N. California is much better about providing services. I really think it depends on the area.

You might even want to look into it for Henry.

Renee

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iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Sun, 11-19-2006 - 4:00pm

The general consensus at the meeting was that the county school system normally refuses to give music therapy, but the city school system normally does give music therapy.


We are in the county school system.


I haven't even begun any kind of therapies yet. We are still in the evaluation process.


During her presentation, I was wondering if Henry would really benefit from music therapy. We did kindermusik when he was 2 - 4, and he really liked it. I'm sure he would like this stuff, too but it seemed geared more toward kids with more severe problems.


Plus, I got some ideas of stuff I could do with Henry just by listening to her. She said she'll work on getting to answer in complete phrases. She starts by setting it to music--like "What is your name?" "My name is Henry." or "I am Henry." I never really paid attention to it before, but Henry answers in very short phrases or one word. So I'm going to work on that with him.


All the stuff she said sounded wonderful and really effective.


iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Mon, 11-20-2006 - 12:21am

I thought it was for more severe kids too but they really have done some great stuff with my kids. There is even a teen group "band" I would love to get the kids in if I could fund it.

In individual sessions they worked on a bunch of stuff. One activity was they would pick and instrument to represent family members or feelings and play music to represent stories or share feelings. They would then morph this into using them for either communication purposes or for social stories. Another was even through using one kind of instrument where you had to work 2 different things at the same time, it worked on bilateral coordination.

They can make songs and such to help kids remember things. Lists, routines, etc. Mike used it to create and write his own music to express himself and put it too a video. The cool thing for him there is it is good training in an interest area that he could use career wise later.

There was a bunch of other stuff too, plus learning music helps the brain develop in an awesome way. There is all kinds of research that kids who play music for like over 3 years have increases in IQ, etc. Why I like Music therapy is because a music teacher that understand autism is the one that will be teaching. I don't think a regular music teacher could handle Mr. Mike. Cait perhaps, maybe, lol. Actually she would likely drive a regular music teacher crazy.

Renee

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