"Music is joy" orchestra : when disability becomes an opinion

An old definition of disability, proposed by the World Health Organization in 1980, saw it as the consequence of an impairment. This impairment was considered like a physiological function’s abnormality, which led to an handicap.

This definition put the accent on what one couldn’t do. It stressed one’s limits and his deviation outside the norm, in a statistic sense.

Today, on the contrary, the accent is put on one’s abilities.  Stressing what a person can do, we can see his functioning areas and how the environment can affect this skills, both un a positive and in a negative way.

If someone will live in a favourable environment, though, he will be able to develop to his full potential. This way, his limits couldn’t be espressed and could not become an handicap.

My students are a clear example of this latter definition.

My lessons are open to everyone : very young children (aged 2-3 years old), school-aged children, teens, neurotypical children, disabled ones, gifted children, adhd students, autistic  pupils, blind, deaf students or kids with very rare genetic syndromes.

Alessia, today 20 years old, has deafness and Williams syndrome

I don’t want to make any selection of them, because I think talent is acquired and not inborn.

Everyone can develop it with a constant and daily work.

I select just the families.  I need motivated and determined parents who want to work restlessly with their child every day. This is my only condition.

In other words, I want to select the right environment. A supportive and positive environment will enable everyone to learn.

I’ve been teaching officially for almost 10 years (officially, because I actually had my first students 18 years ago!) and I have never encountered a child who was unable to learn. Never.

Each one could learn something with his unique skills and in his own way. But each one of my students  made progress and did learn something.

                                                                                              

In my students’ orchestra differences are pretty important. Each child, in fact, has the freedom to express his personality, his ideas and his strengths. At the same time, it’s a context where you can’t see one’s limits and disabilities.

This group is composed of 25 children aged 3- 14 years old. The rules are the same for everyone, and they are proposed by the children and chosen by the whole group, included myself.

During the lesson, all the children have to  … speak with a low tone of voice, be kind toward the others and their instruments, listen to the teacher, be quiet when the others are playing or speaking. They have to help each other, enjoy the experience and have fun!

In this group each child is appreciated and valued as a member of the group and as a special and unique person. Each one skills and strengths are recognized and highlighted. I always have a positive, calm and encouraging attitude. I’m never cross or critical but I always use positive reinforcement, just like the children do.

For me it’s really important for each of them to feel understood and valued. Everyone can also give ideas or make proposals, even the youngest ones, and I always listen to them and value their ideas.

In my orchestra there are also some disabled students. Some of them have severe disabilities and disorders, but I don’t feel the need to explain these concepts to the other children. It’d put just an unecessary emphasis on some aspects none even notices.

During rehearsals, lessons and public events, these features don’t come out and children are just children. Each one of them is engaged at his fullest and gives his contribution. I expect not less than 100% from all of them, but this 100% may be different for each child. Each one has “its own” 100%. But I want from all of them attention, commitment, precision, a good posture, a clean sound, a correct bow hold, and a proper preparation. On this matter, you can’t see any difference between “neurotypical” and “disabled” children.

These children are a tight-knit and cohesive group. They often make friends in the group and some of them are literally growing up together. These relationships go beyond each one’s features, but they are also based on them.

When they ask me direct questions of this matter, I just say that anyone has strenghts and weaknesses, and we are all like this. None of us can do everything and each of us can’t do something. But everyone has strenghts and positive aspects. Everyone is wonderful as he is.  And everyone can learn.

This concepts can be understood even by the youngest child. And I don’t feel any need to go further, because for the children it’s unnecessary.

Another crucial aspect of my orchestra is independence’s development. Unluckily, being my studio really small, I can’t let the parents in during group lessons. They take part at every other lesson, but I just haven’t enough room to allow them to stay during the orchestra’s rehersals.

So I’m alone with 15-20 children and I physically can’t follow all of them. Because of that, since they are very young they learn how to look after themselves and the other children. They can take their jackets and shoes off (no shoes in my studio, as we work mainly on the carpet), prepare their instruments and bows and organize the whole room by themselves.

The older ones help the younger or disabled ones, because they are aware of our first rule. As members of a group, they should cooperate and help each other.

Being immersed in a quite and nice environment, they just ignore or don’t even notice inadequate behaviours. This way, attention seeking behaviours don’t get any reinforcement and they just stop after a while. Moreover, these behaviours are put in action not just by disabled children, but almost all the children engage in them. Because they are so young and they still have to learn how to behave, cooperate and work in a group. But they will. I work a lot on behaving well, listening, following rules, being socially competent and so on. I like also using routines like start and final greetings, Twinkle variations to start the lesson, and lots of similar clues.

Also some students who work with me in my 2nd studio take part at the orchestra’s concerts and events.

Sara and Claid, for example, both autistic pupils, have been playing a very important role in the group for some years :

In conclusion, these children are so lucky to live a great life experience. Playing in this group is and educational, formative and enriching experience. Through their violin, they are growing up and they learn while enjoying themselves.

I’m well aware of asking much to them and their families. Still, when I see them smiling and being happy and proud of themselves, I know I’m on the right track. And I know their efforts and sacrifices will be repaid.

 And I’m sure they will remember these moments forever.

Music and autism : why should music be a therapy?

When I read articles and leaflets about activities for disabled people, I feel amazed these proposals are often "different" from the ones for "non disabled" people.

These differences lie not only in their contents, but also in their names. Swimming becomes "idrotherapy", sport is "sail boat therapy", "inclusive basket" or " together football" .... art is "drawing therapy" and music becomes " healing sound", " magic notes", " relational music" and so on...

The idea in itself it's not so bad. But I don't like how those activities are realized, and I disagree with their aims. I don't agree with considering all these activities as therapies, just because their are for disabled people. In my opinion, this is a wrong and dangerous view.  Because it gives a wrong idea of a disabled person, and it leads to " miracle thinking". It should be instead more useful to concentrate on concrete aims, real therapies and real life learning tasks. Without relying on some "miraculus" event who can "cure" important disorders just by listening to some music or drawing a paint.

Moreover, I think changing these activities' names is unnecessary. It'd be better just to adapt our teaching approach to whoever we have in front of us. Wether this person had a disability or not.

Each of us is a unique and original human being. To be an effective teacher we have to consider that point. We just have to understand what makes this person unique and what are her features.

If we could see a disability just like a cluster of traits, without being judgmental or afraid of them, we would do a great favour for a lots of people. And also for ourselves, because we could be more relaxed and confident while working with them.

When I look at Pietro, I just see a 4 years olded student, not a disabled child

"Differentiated" proposals are useless. We shouldn't think "normal" activities are not accessible to disabled students, because this is not true.

What makes the difference is the teaching approach, not contents or names.

If we choose to call theatre " expressive therapy" or chamber music " orchestral involvement", we don't make them easier. On the contrary, we just underline the differences between those who can learn, play, develop and those who can't.

It were like some people could have access to "real" activities and some others could just have a "surrogate" of them.

Not every child who starts a music, theatre or sport course will become a professional. But this souldn't be our goal anyway. Every child can, instead, reach a beginner level in music, sport or art.

It all depends on the teacher. Limits are never in the child, because every child can learn.

We should just know how to teach them, without thinking "this child can't learn" just because he has some issues. Or "I'm doing therapy" because everything related to disablity "must be" therapy.

Sara is autistic, but she is  first of all a violin and piano student

Some professionals want, anyway, their work to "be" therapeutic. They can prove how much their "patients" are improved, and they are sure this improvement depends on their intervention.

In some articles on music therapy I read "this child demonstrated a better emotional tuning because he pressed the piano's keys while the therapist was playing"

Well, in my view this is exactly what it seems : a child who's casually pressing some keys, without any awarness or ability to choose. Just like any other kid would have done in front of a piano.

There's no learning and no relation in this scene. This is not a relational behaviour, but it may be at best a turn taking behaviour, which is way easier than that claimed "relationship" skill.

I've also read that " When working with less affected patients (this is really what it reads!! Affected!) with autism, words are not needed. My whole communication with an Asperger boy consisted of singing. If I stopped singing, he went away and lost all his interest in me"

A casual reader may think : "That's great!" . Too bad that an Asperger child can perfectly speak in a correct and functional way, and it's terribly wrong to let him behaving like he couldn't.

Because this is a skill he certainly has, and we should at least help him to develop and use it with a specific and serious training. Not by singing.

In another article I read : " The worst thing a teacher can do with an autistic student, is to make him wait while the other are playing".

Yes, waiting it just for "normal" children, why should a disabled child learn to wait???
He's disabled, he's excused! He cannot learn.

Can you see the discrimination thought behind this sentence??

Finally, all the emphasis music therapy puts on freedom and "improvisation" like an instrument to express and encourage a relationship between the child and the therapist. This can be really dangerous and can lead to serious problems for an autistic person.

A music therapist writes : " Using an improvisative musical game, we find ourselves in a place where there aren't any rules and we can discover the unpredictable. In those moments, our patient will express himself with a look, a sound or a movement. And we'll see he'll be present. He won't be able to hide his love for music and his terrible need of something powerful but invisible that music is."

First of all, in this quote I see a lot of stereotypical thinking : why an autistic child shouldn't be "present"? Why shouldn't he love music?? 

Second, nothing can be more confusive and scary for an autistic child than a non-structured and an unpredictable environment.

The absence of rules and of a schedule can put an autistic person in a state of fear and anxiety. And it increases the probability of having melt downs, anxiety,  escape or aggressive behaviours.

Claid is a great (autistic) student, but he needs to have clear rules and a fixed schedule to work properly

Other music therapists say music is the best "communication" tool for disabled children. But a child can't express himself through music if ha can't play an instrument. It'd be just like speaking without words. It'd be a confused and uncomprehensible communication. It'd be a completely casual communication, just like improvisation without knowing any note is. Pressing piano keys or plucking a guitar's strings without any knowledge about it , it's just confusion and playing like with a toy.

In my opinion, this is not true self expression because it doesn't express anything and it's not a communication tool for a child.

A non verbal child, in fact, can surely communicate, but can't express himself completely, because he lacks means to do it. That's why we use signs, symbols and when it's possible words. Or even notes, but after a child has learnt how to "use" them.

I think the most important concept of all this talk is our view of a disabled person. If we see am autistic child like a "special" human being, who's different from us and who lives in a " world apart", then we want to be "magic" and help him "going out" that "bubble" he lives in. 

In this view, we need some "magic" tool which helps us to enter his world, to connect with him in a sublte and subconscoius way. The most important goal it is then the "emotional tuning" with him, that incredible "healing relationship" between us.

BUT  if we see an autistic child as he really is .... A CHILD, 

and we understand he needs tools and ways to a part of OUR world, which is also HIS world (becausen there is no "other" world!)...

We will then understand is unnecessary to find some imaginative and creative solutions just for this child.

We could just make what all the others do accessible also for them.

This way, he'll be allowed to live in the real world along with the other people.