Music therapy assessment: bridging gaps

Abstract

Background: Members of this round table have recently formed the International Music Therapy Assessment Consortium. The purpose of this collaboration is to strengthen the field of music therapy by ensuring development and standardization of research-based assessment tools, increase awareness of use of assessment within and outside of the field, and strengthen clinical application of assessment.Objective: Looking across disciplines, standards of music therapy assessment needs to improve to ensure the quality of the entire profession. Does this require a change of culture inside the music therapy community? To enable a joint discussion and broaden the perspective of music therapy as a field the panel will focus on the meta-perspectives of music therapy assessment including rationale for assessment, research design and psychometrics, social services and business, assessment training and clinical application.