Music Therapy with Children

Music Therapy with Children is an introduction to what music therapy is capable of with profoundly handicapped children. It presents case studies of children with different handicaps, who are helped through the use of music. Nadine is a German child who is blind and was experiencing many difficulties in communicating with the outside world. The case study on the CD Rom shows how through music therapy, she develops vocal abilities and begins to sing. She now attends a school for normal children despite her blindness.

Nicole, from the Nordoff Robbins Center in New York, is also blind and withdrawn. Through the use of very skilled musical improvisations she is encouraged to communicate and at the end of the video example, it is shown how she is able to enjoy a world of both sound and movement. This theme of sensory development and the entry into a world of communicative richness through music is one that is reflected in the further examples. Rasul and Christopher are two children who attended the Institute for Music Therapy in Germany and through the use of music begin to come to terms with their handicaps. Stefan is a multiply handicapped child from Denmark. Despite his condition, the video demonstrates how he responds to music and how a sensory world is opened up to him. All the video examples are accompanied by explanatory texts and it is possible to steer through the video examples. The CD Rom is compatible for Windows 95 and Macintosh operating systems.