Speaking Musically

by Kristina Chew

categories: art and music, Communication

Published July 22, 2009 @ 12:38AM PT

(I got the idea for this post before reading this one from yesterday by Dora, for reals. Hope it is complementary.)

I've thought a lot about music in seeking to understand my son's communication, both verbal and non-verbal. Charlie has been attentive to music from when he was an infant and Jim whistled "We love you Charlie" (based on this song) and "Charlie boy" (based on this song) and I played the piano with a far smaller boy on my lap. He could sing complete phrases of songs when he was 4 or so (it's very rare that Charlie produces a phrase of more than three words on his own). He can read music on the piano and cello at a fairly basic level, but that's reading that has come more readily to Charlie than reading words. He seems to listen for pitch and tone and tune in what people say, as much as to individual words. Sometimes it's the tune Charlie sings that tells us how he is feeling.

So this music education program makes a lot of sense: It's "designed to help children with ASD better understand emotions and learn to recognize emotions in others" as noted in yesterday's Science Daily. Istvan Molnar-Szakacs, a researcher at the UCLA Tennenbaum Center for the Biology of Creativity and member of the of the Help Group–UCLA Autism Research Alliance, is developing what is to be a 12-week program:

Specifically, the children are using a method of music education known as the Orff-Schulwerk approach. Developed by 20th-century German composer Carl Orff ("schulwerk" is German for schooling), it is a unique approach to music learning that is supported by movement and based on things that kids intuitively like to do, such as sing, chant rhymes, clap, dance and keep a beat or play a rhythm on anything near at hand. Orff called this music and movement activity "elemental" — basic, unsophisticated and concerned with the fundamental building blocks of music.

The 12-week program uses elements from the Orff method — including games, instruments and teamwork — and combines them with musical games. The idea is to pair emotional musical excerpts with matching displays of social emotion (happy with happy, sad with sad, etc.) in a social, interactive setting.

"Music is a birthright of all children. To be able to listen and appreciate, sing or participate in music-making are as essential to development as mathematical or linguistic learning," Molnar-Szakacs said. "The purpose of this work is to provide a means for awakening the potential in every child for being 'musical' — that is, to be able to understand and use music and movement as forms of expression and, through that, to develop a recognition and understanding of emotions."

In some ways, Charlie, through no specific teaching on Jim's or my or anyone's part (save for his former, much-missed piano teacher) indeed is "able to understand and use music and movement as forms of expression." I'd even say that he has developed "recognition and understanding of emotions" though since Charlie's verbal language is limited, I can't be sure of that. Nonetheless, it's precisely because his language is limited that Charlie seems to rely on music both to express something emotional and to pick up on the emotions of others. And certainly combining music with movement (moving a finger to push down a piano key or pluck a string) has something, perhaps, to do with why Charlie has been able to read musical notes after relatively little instruction, whereas reading words has seemed an activity very challenging for him to grasp.

Lately, due to his sound sensitivity, we've had to take a hiatus from the music instrument playing. For most of his life, Charlie has enjoyed listening to CDs in the car and long ago appropriated the CD case to play the DJ (unfortunately resulting in many CDs being smeared and smudged beyond playabiity). For the past several months, he has been saying no to the music and car rides have been quiet but he recently has been interested again. His latest favorite is a "Soulsville USA" CD and, I kid you not, the biggest smile appears when the song "Starting All Over Again" comes on----almost too appropriate.

And just another way that music often does the talking.