Listening in: Music for Students with a Visual Impairment

Abstract

Good listening skills are essential to all areas of the curriculum for all children but they assume a special level of importance to the pupil with a visual impairment. The significance of listening skills to the pupil with a visual impairment is well documented (Arter, 1997) 3 but the idea of using music as an ideal medium to teach listening skills has achieved less recognition. This Paper seeks to outline the important implications of teaching music for learning by pupils in all areas of the curriculum and to explore in particular the idea of using music to teach listening skills to students with a visual impairment. The Paper goes on to explore how music has been used by some students as a form of therapy and a means of self- acceptance enabling them to begin to come to terms with their blindness.