Songwriting as a tool for reading and language remediation

Journal/Book: Music Therapy. 1987; 6: 28-38.

Abstract: Songwriting has been advocated as a tool to aid emotional expression and interaction. With changes in method and therapeutic focus, songwriting can also be beneficial for populations with reading and written language difficulties, including bilingual or academically disadvantaged students, the learning disabled, and the hearing impaired. The author discusses the integration of songwriting with the language experience approach (LEA), an integrated language program advocated for many special populations. Discussion focuses on a rationale for the use of LEA, advantages to incorporating songwriting with LEA, specified steps for LEA-based songwriting, clinical applications, and research findings concerning the language experience approach. ABSTRACT 2: Proposes music as a holistic model for therapy, recognizing the power of sonic vibrations to effect wholeness, health, and consciousness. Music as a communal force has the potential to improve human understanding and relations. Although forms of shared music may vary, the results of communal music can be the same: the breakdown of the barriers that cause isolation among people. This awareness of interrelationships may influence a consciousness far larger than the initial group creating the music and may contribute to a global consciousness.

Note: songwriting as treatment technique; school age children with reading & written language difficulties music as holistic model for therapy; human relations & global consciousness

Keyword(s): Music therapy; reading disabilities; written language; school age children; childhood, Music therapy; holistic health

Zurück | Weiter