Improvement in Music Therapy Sessions

This morning was the last music therapy practicum for this semester.

Only two students showed up at first. They were so shy when we sang their names.

One student even confused the word of "hi" and "goodbye," but the most lovely movement they had was "smile at you and say hi." One student tried so hard to pronunce my name  
"Yang-Ching" and it made every teacher there smiled.

Since today was the last session, students seemed to know that they should respond more and try their best. When the other therapy student said that we were going to do their faviorate song (where is the beechive 12345), one student made fists in front of her already. She seemed to remember the order of the song. She and another boy counted numbers so loud and everytime they counted numbers by showing us their fingers.

Another impressive thing I noticed was the speech prodcution from the girl. She used to say "bus" instead of "school bus" because the articulation was hard for her. Today, I saw her trying hard to articulate "school" bus. cu cu cu cul cul cul scul bus!!!!She tried so hard, and everyone was so impressed the way she learned. VERY NICE JOB GIRL!!!

The biggest achievement from leading music therapy was not how I did  in the session, but how much music helped student to acheive their goals. Those students were diagnosed with Down Syndrome and they are moderate mental retarded. However, they try so hard to behave like other typical children becuse they don’t want to be different. They were born with their disabilities, but they want to be as close as possible to the normal children. They want to be a part of this society and that is why music therapy helping them to learn to adjust in this environment.

I was so glad to see how much progress they had made through this semester. They are improving their skills. At the end of the session, they hugged the other therapy student and me, it was very hard to say "goodbye" this time.