What Is Music Therapy?
Children of all ages and abilities can benefit from music therapy as music is the great communicator and the greatest motivator. Hans Christian Anderson once said “where words fail, music speaks.” Music is the universal language for all children because it’s just so engaging and so powerful.
One of the most unique features of music is that it is processed in both the right and left hemispheres of the brain. The Cognitive Neuroscience of Music, a book that details the scientific study of brain-based mechanisms involved in the cognitive processes with music, shows that when making music, the following systems are all firing at once:
- Sensory
- Auditory
- Visual
- Prefontal
- Motor cortexes
- Cerebellum
- Amygdala
- Hippocampus
How Can Music Therapy Help?
Music therapy offers a variety of multi-sensory experiences that are beneficial to all children but especially for children with sensory processing difficulties. Music therapy powerfully engages the tactile, kinesthetic, auditory and visual systems. Certified music therapists provide a multi-sensory experience by using many different types of instruments which stimulate the auditory, visual, tactile, proprioceptive and vestibular senses.
Music therapy also provides a therapeutic stimulus for children that supports and bridges the connection between speech and singing, rhythm and motor behavior and memory for songs and memory for language processing. In addition, music therapy is consistently able to improve the mood, attention and behaviors which ultimately create a much better environment for learning.
- Enhance cognitive functioning and memory
- Improve speech and language comprehension and verbal ability
- Encourage communication attempts (vocalization, verbalization and gestures, word vocabulary)
- Increase gross and fine motor (sensory motor) skills
- Heighten body awareness and coordination
- Calming
- Increase focus and concentration skills
- Reduce anxiety and manage stress
- Alleviate pain and decrease agitation
- Encourage social interaction and bonding
- Decrease self-stimulation and negative behaviors
- Improve self-esteem and self-expression
- Enhance auditory processing
Even the unborn child may benefit by listening to Mozart music in utero. Find a certified music therapist in your area.
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Sources & References
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Resources
Books
Campbell, Dan. The Mozart Effect: Tapping the Power of Music to Heal the Body, Strengthen the Mind and Unlock the Creative Spirit. Quill, 2001.
Goldstein, Barry. The Secret Language of the Heart: How to Use Music, Sound, and Vibration as Tools for Healing and Personal Transformation. Hierophant Publishing, 2016.
Peretz, Isabelle and Zatorre, Robert. The Cognitive Neuroscience of Music. Oxford University Press, 2003.
