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| The Life of a Music Therapist | ||||||||||||||||||
| Julie walks into the classroom as her therapy students finish their lunch.� When they are done, she begins her thirty-minute session with the three young students by singing the "Hello Song."� The students use American Sign Language, because several students lack vocal skills, and sing, "Hello everybody, yes indeed / Hello everybody yes indeed. / Yes indeed, yes indeed, yes indeed."� "I use this song to develop the students' communication skills and to help them socialize better," Julie explains, while sitting in the small, plastic, blue chair.� "Originally, when I wrote this song, I wanted to help the children learn a way to interact with people in the world." | ||||||||||||||||||
| "I work with autistic students at Kiln Creek Elementary," Julie states as she leans against the back of her chair, behind her desk, flicking a pen, on her lunch break, in her office.� Julie Shields, a music therapist, has her B.A. in Systematic Musicology and a Music Therapy Certificate from UCLA.� "I have always wanted music in my life, and that is way I originally wanted my major to be music performance.� Spring of junior year, I found a liking for psychology as well.� I went to visit the career counselor to find a job for both music and psychology; this is how I found music therapy," confides Julie, as she swings her braid of brown and lightly-grayed hair, laying it over her shoulder and down her chest. | ||||||||||||||||||
| She takes turns with each student, based on his needs, singing, "I have a name inside of me."� Justin, a heavy-set child, about seven-years old, is very excited when it is his turn; he begins yelling the words, "I have a name inside of me, and it goes like this!" and then claps twice.� Joshua, a shy, quiet child, takes his turn.� Since his autism cause his to have trouble talking, he uses sign language and mumbles out a few words, "I name me," and finishes with two claps.� Andrew a heavy-set, African American boy, wearing a green shirt and blue jeans, is overwhelmed by the actions that go with the song, and breaks out into a temper tantrum.� Julie begins strumming a few notes on the guitar to soothe his emotions and calm him down. | ||||||||||||||||||
| After the warm-up songs, Julie teaches the three students a new song about fire trucks, to fit with their class?s theme for the week.� She pulls out a picture of a red fire truck and has each child say "fire truck."� Joshua a small, gaunt child with short brown hair, stumbles on his words for a few minutes.� He suffers from echolalia, which Julie explains, "Is when a child will only speak he has something to repeat back."� Joshua finally mumbles "fire truck" and receives congratulations from the classroom assistant Carla, who has shoulder-length blonde hair and is wearing blue jeans and a gray sweatshirt.� When each child takes his turn singing, he uses pictures to sing along with.� All the students finally join in, singing together, "The wheels on the fire truck go round and round, round and round. /The wheels on the fire truck go round and round, round and round?" | ||||||||||||||||||
| The last song in the lesson is to teach the children about stop, drop, and roll.� With American Sign Language, Justin becomes overly excited and gets extremely hyper.� The classroom assistant, Michelle, has to pull him aside to calm him down.� "Autistics can get stuck on something, like and obsession, and we have to pull them back to '" shares Julie.� The last time the children sing the word "roll," they all roll on the floor.� Joshua does not understand until he sees others doing it.� Julie states, "This is another way his echolalia affects him." | ||||||||||||||||||
| At the end of the session, Julie has Andrew read "The Goodbye Song."� The classroom assistant, Carla enters the cool, white room and hears him reading, and when he finishes, she praises him by saying, "Woo-hoo!"� Each student takes a turn singing a "goodbye" to Julie.� Andrew exclaims, "GOODBYE!!"� Joshua is next, and he takes a few minutes to say bye, but finally gets it out, whispering, "Bye, bye."� Justin sings in a high-pitched voice, "Goodbye, Julie." | ||||||||||||||||||
| It is now time for Julie to pack her things and head out to the next classroom.� "In this next class, most of these children suffer from low functioning autism," confides Julie.� In this room, there are five boys and one girl.� A young girl, Lauren, with dark cornrows, come back from her P.E. time crying, and shaken up.� She needs time to just cry her feelings out and calm down, and she is not allowed to participate in the music class.� The five boys join in "The Hello Song," but only Kamron is capable of singing without using echolalia. | ||||||||||||||||||
| Next, Julie teaches a new song about sharing.� She shakes a rain stick and sings, "I have a rain stick, / shake, shake, shake, / pass and take."� The children join in with her, and they begin passing the rain stick around the circle.� A young Hispanic boy does not want to participate, so he covers his ears.� Mrs. Yolanda, an African American woman in her mid-twenties, wearing a bright pink shirt, finally hands him the rain stick, and he becomes very active. | ||||||||||||||||||
| When the rain stick exercise is over, it is time for the class to be dismissed.� They sing "The Goodbye Song," using American Sing Language, with a few spoken words.� For the children who do not speak at all, there is an electronic button for them to press to say goodbye.� Earl is so non-verbal that he uses all sign language and the button when it is his turn to say goodbye.� Other children push the electronic button, because they think it is "fun." | ||||||||||||||||||
| Julie pulls her wagon of classroom utensils through the white, empty hallways, back to her office.� She sits down at her desk, to take notes on what she did in her classes, and she shares, "Today was the most active I have ever seen them.� They have never read me the songs before."� She begins making plans for next week based on the classes? themes, such as pictures for the Community Helpers class, with the theme of librarians. | ||||||||||||||||||
| Julie uses songs to help the autistic students make connections between the songs and the themes of what they are learning in class.� "The thing I love most about this job is the wide spectrum of kids I get to work with," confides Julie, with a huge smile across her face. "It is nice having some autistics who are so advanced and some who are so incapable of everything.� This challenges me to make songs and chants that will work for everyone," she explains. | ||||||||||||||||||
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