Children usually have difficulty in acquiring correct social skills. Organized music activities, such as singing, rhythm and combination with sports, can provide them with an environment for learning social behavior. Group music therapy can enhance the experience of cooperation, sharing, obeying order and correct behavior. For example, "making friends" can help children learn the etiquette of making friends and correct manners (such as shaking hands). The pleasure brought by observing music order activities is a powerful reinforcement for children's participation and cooperation, which usually attracts their attention. Incorrect behaviors, such as disobedience, aggressive language and random activities, are problems for many children. Because for most children, participating in music is a happy activity, and those incorrect behaviors are usually significantly reduced or even completely disappeared. Therapists can skillfully transform all kinds of pleasant musical activities, such as playing musical instruments, singing, listening, music creation and sports accompanying music, into intensive stimulation to enhance correct social behavior.
(2) Music therapy can develop children's communication skills.
Low language communication ability is the most prominent problem for children. Mild and moderate children can develop basic language skills through music therapy, but severe and extremely severe children must learn nonverbal communication methods, such as sign language or using pictures. Music activities are an ideal way to learn communication skills. Therapists use the melody, rhythm, speed, pitch, strength and lyrics of music to develop children's ability to express language (convey verbal or nonverbal information), receive language (understand information) and receive guidance. In addition, music activities can help children expand the range of pronunciation, improve pitch discrimination and improve the clarity and quality of pronunciation.
Accepting sounds from the environment, or hearing, is the premise of understanding language. Children usually lack the ability to distinguish meaningful auditory stimuli from irrelevant auditory stimuli in the environment, so they cannot obtain and exchange information. Therapists can help children enhance the functions of the auditory system by practicing various musical activities, such as locating, tracking, recognizing and distinguishing sounds. Every music therapy process should include many language experiences, such as the use of repetitive melodies and lyrics, or songs with appropriate emphasis on some important lyrics to help children enhance their memory of the content. Therapists should speak as clearly as possible, use simple sentences and give children enough reaction time. In addition, we advocate the use of visual cues to promote the learning process, such as using fallen leaves, fruits, agricultural products and other common items in autumn when learning songs about "autumn".
(3) Music therapy can develop children's learning ability.
Music activities can be used to teach knowledge concepts, such as recognizing colors and shapes (classification of objects); Classify objects according to volume, quantity and characteristics (arrange them in order); Learn the spatial relationship between up and down, inside and outside; Identify the differences between "first", "second" and "last" (time relationship). Colors can be identified by musical instruments painted with different colors, "high and low"
It can be expressed by the volume of music. Children usually have difficulty in short-term memory, and their ability to recall information quickly after presentation is very limited. Music can help children remember important knowledge. For example, combining pleasant and familiar melody with learning content is an effective way to enhance memory, and displaying learning content through more than two sensory forms, that is, compound sensory activities, can also effectively promote the maintenance of short-term memory learning content. For example, songs about animals are accompanied by pictures of animals. Of course, using music to enhance information retention must be repeated many times, and the speed is slower.
(4) Music therapy can develop children's preschool ability.
Before entering the learning stage, there are some behaviors that must be learned, such as attention, concentration, listening guidance, eye contact and so on. Children usually lack these abilities, and music activities can help children develop these preschool behaviors. For example, concentration: due to the lack of the ability to "filter" irrelevant stimuli, it is difficult for many children to concentrate on a simple operation. Therapists use auditory, visual, tactile and other sensory cues to help children strengthen their attention. For example, group music activities require children to listen to music hints, such as playing musical instruments when they hear music. Music performance must be performed at the right time, which is the ability needed for a successful music performance.
Therapists often consciously extend the waiting time before children play to improve their attention and concentration. Another example is listening to guidance: for children, listening to simple guidance is the premise of learning. In order to improve children's ability, the treatment activity divides a complicated guidance process into several simple steps. First, let children learn to "stand up". When he does well enough, teach him the second step: "stand up and pick up the snare drum" and the third step: "stand up and pick up the snare drum and hand it to the children nearby." After these instructions are integrated into songs, they can effectively help children learn to follow continuous instructions in music activities. Another example is eye contact: the ability to take the initiative and maintain eye contact will directly affect the development of attention and communication skills. Many important information is conveyed through nonverbal forms, so if there is no eye contact, these important information will be lost.
Interesting music activities can help therapists keep eye contact with children. The time of eye contact can be gradually extended by behavior modification or other methods.
(5) Music therapy can develop children's motor skills.
The development of motor skills has a great relationship with learning. The essence of music is an art of time, which can be completed in chronological order without any interruption, so it is an ideal tool to stimulate and train children's sports. All human movements are related to the central nervous system that awakens and controls muscle activity. This highly complex system was immature at birth. Usually, the baby's central nervous system develops rapidly and can be completed by the age of 6, such as running, jumping and other complex activity skills. However, it may be difficult or even impossible for children's central nervous system to develop slowly or not completely autonomously. Exercise under music is an important part of music therapy, and music activities can help children develop fine and rough motor skills. The rhythm of music provides children with the structure and motivation of sports and helps them learn to walk, run and jump. In turn, these exercises will promote children's basic learning abilities such as self-body, balance, space, agility, mobility, strength and direction. For serious children, it is more important to try rhythmic exercises at first than to successfully complete this exercise.
When children can exercise more freely, therapists begin to encourage children to exercise according to the rhythm of music. Exercise of coarse muscle groups, such as dancing, helps to strengthen children's muscle strength and develop agility, coordination and balance. Playing musical instruments, such as piano and guitar, can promote children's fine muscle movement control ability, and then promote children's learning ability, such as writing and drawing.
(6) Music therapy can take music as an entertainment activity.
If children are not properly trained, their leisure life will be meaningless. Therapists can encourage children to engage in music activities in their spare time, and at the same time let them learn how to use audio equipment and participate in community activities; They can learn to play musical instruments, which is also an effective way to make them feel satisfied in their leisure time. Therapists should transform musical instruments according to children's special conditions to meet their special needs. As a meaningful form of extracurricular activities, music can help children adapt to community life better and more successfully.