By Samantha Mockler

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•Overview of “Educational Benefits of Music in an Inclusive Classroom” p. 3-4

• Overview of “Music Therapy Engages Children with Autism in Outdoor Play” p. 5-7

•Overview of “An Empirical Study on Teaching Urban Young Children Music and English by Contrastive Elements of Movement and Song” p. 8-10

•Conclusion p. 11

•Works Cited p. 122

Interesting Facts from the Article:

Music therapy focuses on creating inner peace

Musical expression gives feelings of empowerment

Music alters mood and helps to assess emotional problems

Children are encouraged by musical classrooms to participate and relate

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(Sze, & Yu, 2004)

Personal Reflection:

This article’s main goal was to discuss the ways in which music plays a part in educating children with disabilities including speech and language impairments, orthopedic and health impairments, cognitive disabilities, ADD/ADHD, and emotional/behavioral disorders. The author clearly explained how music can benefit each one of these groups, and proceeded to give instructions to musical exercises that can be used with each group.

The “A-ha!” moment for me in this article came when the author wrote, “The use of music therapy can help people who are crippled by varies cognitive and biopsychosocial problems. It can also help to improve the quality of life for people with disabilities of various kinds.” It made an emotion connection with me, and made me realize that this matter is greater than just education; this is about improving a child’s overall happiness and enthusiasm to live and learn. 4

(Sze, & Yu, 2004)

Interesting Facts from the Article:

Children with autism operate best in structured, predictable environments

Autistic children often have little to no peer interaction

Autistic children are known to respond positively to music

A study showed that autistic children that engage in music together improve social interaction dramatically

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("Music therapy engages," 2007)

Personal Reflection:

This article was focused on the way in which music helps autistic students learn to socially interact with teachers and peers. The author explained a study done on four autistic boys: Lucas, Philip, Ben, and Eric. The boys all showed little to no desire to socially interact initially, but when music was applied to social activities, every boy showed a huge increase in interaction with both their peers and their teachers.

The “A-ha!” moment for me in this article was when the author explained autism, saying, “Autism is a complex developmental disorder that affects verbal and nonverbal communication and social interaction, and is associated with repetitive and restricted behaviors.” I do not know much about autism, so it was news to me that autistic children favor repetition. After learning this, I believe that using music to teach autistic children makes perfect sense because music has, in itself, repetition. The author did not analyze the outcome, but constant rhythm of music must play a very key role in gaining the attention of an autistic child.

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("Music therapy engages," 2007)

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("Music therapy engages," 2007)

Personal Reflection (cont.):

Results of Study

Au

tisti

c

Boys

Interesting Facts from the Article:

Music, language, and intelligence develop in direct correlation with a child’s social world

Listening to complex music elevates scores on tests of spatial reasoning

Music connects the brain’s right and left hemispheres, promoting more complex thinking- “a ‘whole brain’ approach to learning”

Children’s learning and memory abilities for music are parallel to those for language 8

(Lee, 2009)

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Personal Reflection:

This article was about the way in which music helps children learn foreign languages. The author describes, in detail, a study done on seven urban Taiwanese children and the quest to teach them English with the aid of music. The study found that music did indeed prove helpful in teaching the children simple English, while also engaging them in spontaneous movement and giving them a cultural education in classical music and its structure.

(Lee, 2009)

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Personal Reflection (cont.):

I had two “A-ha!” moments in this article. The first was when the author said, “Children instinctively create music when they play. They bang out a rhythm, they create songs, most children love noisemakers.” Just about everyone has witness a child do this at some point- why not utilize instinct?

The second was when the author quoted, “As Gardner wrote ‘the single most important thing in education is for each person to find at least one thing that he/she connects to, gets excited by, feels motivated to spend more time with.’ For many children, music is that thing (Gardner, 1992).” This quote seems to tie everything together. Children relate to music, and that is why so many of them can find great purpose in applying it to their education.

(Lee, 2009)

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After reading these three articles, it is obvious that there are numerous ways in which music can be incorporated into education to improve student experience. It is well known that many children with disabilities are unable to learn in the same ways as their classmates, and it is demonstrated with these articles that music could prove to be the deciding factor in a disabled child’s overall health, happiness, and learning productivity. Even children without learning disabilities may find that adding music to the classroom can enhance the speed and quality in which they learn. It would be wise for all educators to look more in to the benefits of music in education and to make sure they are giving all their students a fair chance to succeed.

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Lee, L.L. (2009). An Empirical study on teaching urban young children music and english by contrastive elements of music and songs . US-China Education Review , 6(3), doi: ED504963

Music therapy engages children with autism in outdoor play. (2007). FPG Child Development Institute, (39), doi: ED496633

Sze, S., & Yu, S. (2004). Educational benefits of music in an inclusive classroom. doi: ED490348