Music is a universal language. In my experience in working with children who have Autism Spectrum Disorder, most of them respond very well to music. In my classroom, we use music all day long. As a former music therapy major, I learned a number of ways to incorporate music into my classroom in a therapeutic manner.
There are a number of ways I use music to teach children. It has been my observation that all children, but particularly those with special needs, learn and benefit from having music incorporated into almost every part of their day.
The following are some of the ways in which I do so.
1. Sing the Daily Schedule
As in most classrooms for children with autism and other disabilities, I have a daily schedule posted with words and pictures. Most teachers use Board-marker. Mine are schedule cards I got from ABCTeach.com. I point to the schedule and literally sing the words to the tune of "Oh My Darling Clementine." I sing "First there's breakfast, then there's bathroom, morning work and check-in, then there's recess, juice time, group time, and there's trampoline if you're on green." And so forth. If I miss a day, one of my students will say "Ms. Whiting, I need you so sing to us."
2. Exercise to music
We exercise in my classroom several times per day. I try to make sure the children get an hour of exercise per day, including their two fifteen minute recesses, but oftentimes they get more.
Here are some of my favorite CD's and DVD's for our exercise time:
• Greg and Steve's CD - "Kids in Action"
• "Moove n Groove Kids" DVD
3. Calendar Time
We sing songs at Calendar time for the days of the week and the months of the year. Circle time is a particularly good time to use music to practice eye contact, wait time and social interaction.
4. Daily Sign-in
Because I teach younger children, they usually don't know their names in print at the beginning of the year. A very simple sign-in game I use is with plain paper plates. I put each child's name on a paper plate. The next thing I do is put one of the paper plates on the floor and sing to the tune of "If You're happy and you know it"
"If your name is on the plate, stand up.
If your name is on the plate, stand up.
If you name is one the plate, then you're doing really great.
If you name is on the plate stand up."
The child stands up, picks up the plate and gives it to me. He then chooses his name from the magnetic white board and adds it to our daily sign-in chart and our daily lunch choice board.
Our daily sign-in is different every day. It is a "Question of the day" with two columns that I have made up such as:
What kind of ice cream to you like? Chocolate or Vanilla
What color do you like least? Red or Blue
The child has to put his name under the column that best fits for him.
5. Use music for teaching all basic skills.
I discovered a new series of DVD's this year called "Super Simple Songs." They were developed by the staff of the Knock Knock English School in Japan. They were having a hard time finding simple songs that were fun for their Japanese students who were learning English, so they developed their own.
Super Simple Songs can be used independently but I prefer to make or download from the website some kind of visual with every song I use. Children with autism are very visual and need pictures as much as possible.
I bought the series of three CDs and have used them every day since. I use songs to teach basic academic skills such as numbers, letters, shapes and colors. I also use them to teach social skills, emotions, wait time, and even humor, something children have a very hard time understanding. There is a song called "Do you like Broccoli Ice Cream?" that teaches humor and sarcasm.
Music helps student with autism learn skills but also helps them generalize skills into other areas of their life. We use music wherever we go. I started 20 years ago with a record player in my classroom and how I'm using a CD player, an IPod and my Smartphone.
Written by Kristin Whiting
For more information on Kristin, go to her blog at http://www.myspecialneedsclassroom.com
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