On Thursday, I started new visual aid folders. This time I had to choose recent pop songs and print pictures to go along with the lyrics. The clients then make the song using the pictures in the folder. Here's one of them.
Day 14:
A new graduate student from ASU led the morning session with the elderly people. No one showed up to the 9:30am session, so we had to wait for the 10:30 am session to start. The student did things differently, she read all of her music from her phone, and even played the first song directly from her phone while doing relaxation and breathing exercises. She constantly sang songs after that with no real variety. So that must be her teaching style. The clients were really accepting of her and helpful considering she was new and English wasn't her first language.
I went to the clinic after this and was able to observe client 1 after a couple weeks. He is 13 years old with Autism, and his goals are communication and sensory skills. Compared to client 2, he doesn't listen or cooperate nearly as much. He had his fingers in his ears and would ignore the music therapist a lot. He would also get distracted a lot with the instruments rather than play them. He also started to kick her. So far, he doesn't seem to progress or get much out of the sessions. He just has a constant mood and behavior the whole time. She has to give more attention to his goals than the other client because it is harder for him to cooperate. I have also noticed that he is better at musical commands than physical commands. Client 2 had a good, productive session as usual.
Questions about the personnel organization of the clinic--How many of the therapists there are professors, grad students, undergrads, or other kinds of staff? What kind of training and supervision do the students get before or during working with the clients? Do you think the grad student you observed just had a different style or was it more her inexperience? Does the leadership often vary from session to session? (And is that different with the bigger groups v. the clinics?
ReplyDeleteI know some of the therapists I work with on Mondays (preschooler days) are grad students. I see a lot of people who recently graduated college and are starting their careers here. The therapists on Fridays (Alzheimer's days) are both seniors at ASU, but one is an undergrad and the other is a grad student. I know of at least 1 professor that helps with sessions, but she doesn't run private sessions. She teaches and supervises the Monday and Friday therapists because as part of their course requirements they have to run sessions like these. But the students are mostly in charge of what happens during the session and the professor is there to watch, make suggestions, and accompany on songs. The grad student I observed hadn't run a session before (at least this kind of session) so I think it was partly her inexperience, but she did have a plan for the day so it may also have been her style. As far as leadership goes, the preschoolers have a 40 minute session, so the 2 students each have 20 minutes. For the sessions with the Alzheimer's participants, there are 2 sessions (each an hour) and the seniors take turns being in charge of each one, although they do still accompany each other during songs. So there isn't really a huge difference between the bigger groups or the clinic group, other than the amount of time they have to complete their session.
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