What'd Ya Say? Wednesdays: Music and Speech Therapy

I recently came across the article "Musical Strategies" that was archived from the magazine Advance. It was published in November 2012 and written by Louise Patrick, PhD , detailing the incorporation of music into children's speech therapy programs. 

Despite the ever-growing reductions in education funding taking out extra programs like music and art, there is a greater need for children to receive therapy within the school system. Without a doubt, this includes speech therapy. But how can SLPs keep children entertained while learning and expanding their speech abilities? One idea, brought up by Dr. Parker, is the possibility of bringing music into it; after all, children love music.

She brings up a good point that children don't necessarily need to know the lyrics; they just need to have a basis of sounds which they can mimic to practice sounds found in language. One such example was that of animal noises. They have different contour patterns and inflections that children can use as a foundation for when they start building morphemes and utterances. So, they don't actually need to learn the words, rather the shapes of the sounds that form the words, which can be facilitated through musical lyrics. But, she also notes that we can use "snippets" from songs to help provide them a repetitive pattern to echo back and build on. This is especially helpful for special needs speech therapy clients.

Another idea is to use songs that pay tribute to a particular sound or phoneme that you want to emphasize. For instance, she mentions using the song Miss Mary Mack, as it includes something physical (clapping) and focuses on "m". Focusing on a phonological aspect and adding other motor or cognitive tasks can help a child flourish and maintain their attention on the activity more. And of course the music just adds more fun!

I think one of the best parts of this job is the ability to be creative with therapy plans. Adding music is an innovative idea that can help speech therapists in their quest of helping others find their voice. This can prove especially helpful with groups of kids, as they all can sing together and support one another. Plus, who doesn't love music and some silly dancing or lyrics! Speech therapists should try to find a way to incorporate this into their program, whether it be at schools or even medical facilities! Just look up "music therapy" images on Google, and you'll find a plethora of hospital and elderly patients utilizing music therapy (whether speech-related or not).

If you'd like more information about her ideas for music and it's role in speech therapy, then check out the article right here.

What'd Ya Say? Wednesdays: Temple Grandin

Hello all!

Well here we are at my first edition of "What'd Ya Say? Wednesday". Basically, I am hoping to enlighten everyone each week with something new and interesting that I find. These will typically have some relation to Speech-Language Pathology or Linguistics and related subjects, such as: Genetics, Audiology, Disorders/Diseases, Technology, etc. I'll provide written or video commentary on articles, videos, websites, journals and feature blogs that deal we these subjects! If I feature any blogs, I'll be sure to put them in the "Feature Blogs" page at the top of my blog.

This week's edition is about an amazing lady, Temple Grandin, who has Autism. At the time, her specific type of Autism was called Asperger's Syndrome, but (I believe) that it is no longer considered a "thing", rather just part of the vast spectrum that encompasses Autism.  Speech-Language Pathologist have many cases with people that have Autism Spectrum Disorder, and I believe that her speech brings light into these fascinating minds.

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Her speech, titled "The World Needs All Kinds of Minds", details just how the autistic mind works; it relies on detail rather than global attention to a subject.  In turn, they are also very specified in what they do. Once they find a passion, they will often fixate on it and become specialists in what they chose. She also states that there are even different minds within the Autistic population: the photo-realistic-visual thinkers, pattern thinkers, and verbal people. Photo-realistic-visual minds, like her, tend to be great spatial thinkers and use pictures/motion "pictures" to identify objects and ideas. Pattern thinkers are great for abstract and mathematical thinking. Verbal minds are good for expression and memorizing facts. She states that many teachers lack the knowledge and resources to assist these students and facilitate their growth.

If teachers and professionals knew that we not only need 'normal' minds that see the big picture, but we also need these detail-oriented thinkers, then we would be able to figure out many problems. We would also be able to help their growth as well, whether it be through hands-on classes, one-on-one sessions or mentoring a student. She actually states that mentoring is one of the greatest facilitators we have to help students grow. I believe her statement that it doesn't matter if it's an old skill to learn, as long as a skill is learned, it can create a spark to then desire more education in the newer aspects of the skill. She also mentions how those with Autism are very sensory-oriented and sensitive to certain senses. We need to keep that in mind, as with the other information, in order to help provide appropriate and attention-creating therapy ideas.

As Speech-Language Pathologists, teachers, researchers and fellow citizens, we need to understand and attempt to relate to minds like hers. We can get great insight and use this knowledge to further our therapy ideas, research and teaching for not only autistic minds, but for others with and without disabilities! She is a great person to learn from, and has an interesting personal history that you can look further into if you are interested!