Adaptive Music Lessons
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Adaptive music lessons are offered to students with mental health needs and developmental and learning disabilities. Although instrumental private music lessons are customizable in nature, adaptive music lessons take into consideration the student's health diagnosis. Adaptive music lessons are led by a music therapist with a background in psychology and neuroscience.
During adaptive music lessons, the music therapist considers each student's unique set of skills and limitations and determines what accommodations will be needed for the student to succeed on their instrument of choice. The music therapist takes a creative approach to overcome challenges with the student. Examples of accommodations made during adaptive lessons might include: physically modifying an instrument, using multimodal means of learning (kinesthetic, visual, aural), enlarging sheet music for students with vision impairment, modifying the pacing of the lessons to allow the student enough time to succeed, etc.
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Who can Benefit from Adaptive Lessons?
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Clients with:
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Intellectual Disabilities/Mental Delays
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Alzheimer's/Dementia
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Physical Disabilities
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Substance Abuse Disorder
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Brain Injuries
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Acute and Chronic Pain
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ADHD
We offer adaptive lessons in piano, guitar, ukulele, and voice.
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How are Adaptive Lessons Different from an Individual Music Therapy Session?
The purpose of adaptive music lessons is to learn the instrument of choice, while making the necessary accommodations to succeed on that instrument. Meanwhile, individual music therapy focuses on attaining non-musical goals specific to the client's needs using music-based activities.
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For this reason, it is very common for students to register for both music therapy sessions and adaptive music lessons!