The Use of Music to Promote Purposeful Movement in Children with Visual Impairments

Abstract

Music plays a major role in education and development of all children. Although use of music in education process may seem obvious to most professionals, there are only a few studies that discuss effect of music on purposeful movement of students with visual impairments (DePountis, Cady, & Hallak, 2013; Desrochers, Oshlag, & Kennelly, 2014; Sapp, 2011). A large percentage of teachers of students with visual impairments and other professionals use music and movement to some degree when working with students. The author of this article has extensive past experiences working as a music therapist collaborating with occupational and physical therapists in a rehabilitative therapy setting while using music to promote movement for people with disabilities including those with visual impairments. The same strategies are proving beneficial in a music classroom setting to increase students' participation through movement activities. The purpose of this Practice Perspective is to provide evidence and examples of music activities that can promote purposeful movement for students with visual impairments. Music and movement Supporting evidence from field of neuroscience and music therapy suggests that people can learn or relearn movement through activities that require moving to external auditory stimuli like music. Rhythmic entrainment is ability of a person to automatically synchronize his or her physical movements to metrical structure (meter or the beat) of music (Trost et al., 2014). Neurological processing of meter is a consistent, repetitive, and predictable duration of time that involves temporally-precise two-way interactions between motor planning regions and auditory regions of brain (Patel & Iversen, 2014, p. 11). Manipulation of music's metrical structure proved beneficial for increasing duration of students' movement as well as decreasing need for verbal prompts from teacher. Activities such as marching and simple dance sequences allowed students to synchronize movement to beat. With live music, tempo could be increased or decreased or stopped and started according to beat in a game-like context. The use of props proved beneficial for some students with more severe disabilities. Students who were willing to grasp a parachute or scarves could move to beat in a more passive manner while teacher actively moved prop. Movement through instrument playing Playing musical instruments is an effective way to promote purposeful movement and reaching in upper extremities of students with visual impairments. Research suggests that Therapeutic Instrumental Music Playing (TIMP) can promote functional movement when individuals are encouraged to play musical instruments in nontraditional ways (Thaut, 2005). The key component for increasing movement and making it functional is location or placement of instrument based on a person's individualized need. This approach proved beneficial for students with more severe disabilities, including those with deafblindness. After introducing an instrument with hand-under-hand assistance, preferred instruments were placed in close proximity to students, which allowed them to participate in a manner that reinforced concepts of left or right, crossing midline, reaching over their head, and increasing range of motion. In addition, students with vision performed on percussion instruments in which they were required to visually track drum beat. The teacher would alternate placing paddle drums on students' right or left side and high or low. This activity promoted range of motion and crossing midline, as well as increasing duration of movement that usually lasted for entire song with minimal verbal cues from teacher. Music technology and movement Incorporating music technology like Thermin (see Figure 1) and Soundbeam (Figure 2) was a fun and motivating way to promote purposeful movement of students. …