WHO ARE WE ???

My name is Karen Richmond (Finter) and I have been a Registered Music Therapist in Queensland for 14 years, specialising in the field of special education and early intervention.   I have worked with children with varying disabilities aged between 0 – 18, taking class groups, playgroups with family members and individual private music therapy sessions in schools and community environments.  After many years of teachers, aides and parents asking me to produce a CD for them to use in their classrooms and homes, in the hope of transferring the skills students achieve in music therapy to other environments, I have finally started to produce the ‘Groovin’ series with ‘Let’s make music…’ as the first volume.  To do this, I persuaded my good friend Nathan, who is a primary school music teacher with recording experience to help me out, and so we have started on the ’Groovin’ journey together.  We hope that you enjoy the start of this series and other volumes to come.  We would love some feedback on what you like about the CD and what more we could include, or change, to better help you use music in your classroom or home.  Other volumes could include focusing on language and communication skills, parent and baby interactions and theme work… please let me know if there are any specific songs and activities that you would like to be included in the ‘Groovin’ series, or if you would like to be included on the mailing list to know when more volumes are coming out.

WHY MUSIC ???

Music therapy is a professional discipline that uses music to achieve therapeutic aims.  Music therapy in special education and early intervention is the functional use of interactive music-based activities to achieve and enhance goals, for example social skills, language & communication, self-expression & confidence, physical skills and cognitive stimulation, while offering an alternative to traditional teaching methods.

Music is a universal language and is enjoyable and engaging, therefore students are more likely to stay alert and on task to then achieve goals whilst having fun.  Even if students are developmentally delayed, their music skills may not be and therefore working on and exploring these developmental skills using music, may achieve faster and more profound results.

There is lots of new research coming out that supports how musical interactions in early childhood is being linked to stronger developments in cognitive behaviour, speech patterns and more..   I believe music has the fun and excitement to engage children of all ages and with this CD I am hoping that we can spread music into the children’s wider environment to promote the high achieving abilities they present within music therapy sessions.