Awesome Guy

Siftables

When I attended the Eagle Hill Symposium last spring, I was taken with all of the ways in which the school was using technology in order to provide access to the curriculum for different learners.  As teachers, we need to find for our students the best way to get new information in, and then the best way for the students to get the information out in order to show us evidence of their learning.  Traditionally, this would be the teacher lecturing to some degree, then the students telling back what they have learned either orally or in writing.  But what about the child who has difficulty taking in spoken language (i.e. receptive language disability), the child who has difficulty organizing their thoughts (i.e. executive function issues), or the child who struggles with expressing their learning verbally (i.e. expressive language disability) or in writing (i.e. dysgraphia)? There are some remarkable tools out there that are emerging as technology gets more and more sophisticated.  Did you know, for instance, that a variety of over 50,000 books can be read to a student using the site bookshare.org? In this post, I wanted to get everyone's imaginative juices flowing with a very new technology that has not yet made it into the schools.  Just imagine what we might do for different learners with something like siftables.  Take a look at the video below:

Music Therapy

We met our first music therapist when Declan was in the hospital for his first round of surgeries.  Skeptical when she first walked into the room, I was fast won over by her ability to engage and calm him.  They sang together as she played on her guitar, she gave him instruments to play along, and one time, after hearing that Dec was taking piano lessons at home, she arranged to have a keyboard brought to his bed.  What was so interesting about her work was the way that she was so completely tuned into Declan.  Rather than guiding him, she would "lead from behind," and let Declan's choices and actions guide her.  For many subsequent visits, we actually sought her out and invited her to visit Declan in his room.  The pediatric floor at NYU Langone actually has a full time music therapist whose job is to not only engage children in positive, fun, and meaningful ways, but also to promote wellness, help manage stressful situations, alleviate pain, help patients to express themselves, and to promote rehabilitation.  We now have a music therapist come to our home to work with Declan once a week.  I am still learning a lot about the effects of music on the brain, but from my more recent research and experience, I am learning that music can have a positive effect on so many issues that occur with people with special needs.  Judy, Declan's music teacher from Connecticut Music Therapy, tends to work with Declan on his auditory processing, expressive and receptive language, executive function, sensory integration, memory, and sequencing, while also teaching him to read music and learn to play different instruments.

Take a look at the video below about music therapy.  It was created by the Berklee College of Music: