Music Therapy for Special Needs Students

Redwood Heights Elementary School, Lower Hills (2011)

Redwood Heights Elementary School’s special needs students will work with Kathy Quain, a board-certified Music Therapist, in a program that will teach students to communicate via signing, symbol systems and adaptive equipment such as electronic “talkers.” The Technology and Augmentative Communication for Learning Enhancement (T.A.C.L.E.) program serves students with severe speech and/or physical impairments often caused by acute verbal apraxia, autism, cerebral palsy, chromosomal abnormality, or other cortical impairments.

Some of the goals for the program include optimizing student access and participation in a music program designed to their individual abilities; providing students with opportunities to communicate through music, utilizing an area of the brain other than the “speech center”; encouraging students with special needs to be more active in a verbal world by increasing their interactions within a communication exchange; supporting school and T.A.C.L.E. curriculum including academics, social skills, motor development, language development, and cultural awareness; providing an enjoyable class that supports self expression and self acceptance through music; and round out the students’ arts education with a music program appropriate for them.