Beginning experiences in piano performance for a girl with down syndrome: A Case study

Journal/Book: Music Therapy Perspectives. 1991; 9: Silver Spring, Maryland, USA. National Association for Music Therapy 8455 Colesville Rd., Suite 930 20910 Silver Spring, Maryland USA. 82-85.

Abstract: An experimental method for teaching piano is described through a case study of an eighteen-year-old girl with Down syndrome. The method, lasting twelve weeks with one to two sessions per week, utilized a modified reversal design and introduced four types of intervention to aid the subject in improving performance of finger exercises at the piano. The baseline condition consisted of a verbal cue to precede segments of an exercise and the treatment conditions were: verbal cue with tactile cue condition, verbal cue with visual/aural model condition, sung cue condition, and iconic/symbolic representation condition. The results indicated that the iconic/symbolic representation condition yielded the best performance. The success of the experiment encouraged the subject to continue private lessons developing further independence at musical performance.

Keyword(s): Down's-syndrome, developmental-disabilities, piano, instruction, performance.

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