Music Therapy for Students with Disabilities

This link includes various resources for using music therapy for students with all different types of disabilities. This web site and program, Coast Music Therapy, includes information of how music therapy helps students with autism and other disabilities, and offers many other programs and clinics. However, there are a number of free resources on the site, from activities to detailed articles explaining ho to use music therapy. There are even links on Adapted Music Education and Holiday and Seasonal Music activities.

5 Reasons Why Music Helps Kids With Special Needs

This simple infographic, from The Rhythm Tree, found on Friendship Circle, details how music helps students with disabilities learn. There are many advantages to including music in your lessons, and sometimes you can base lessons entirely around music and yield great results!

To make this image larger, simply right click the image and press "Open Image in New Tab," where you can then zoom in on it.

Tips for Teaching Music to Special Education Students

For a music teacher, they likely only see students for a limited portion of the day, and their time with students with disabilities can be much more stressful than working with general education students. If a music teacher is only giving special education students to mess around with for the music period, they're not exactly teaching, just keeping them busy. However, this link provides some very good tips for teaching students with disabilities various music fundamentals, and how to get around things like non-verbal students. I'm not a music teacher, and won't pretend that I know anything about music theory or how to teach it, but the author's credentials check out.

Using Music with Special Education Students

This site details 4 very simple ways that music can be used in everyday lessons for special education students. Music is a great auditory resource, and when paired with visual resources, or any other of your lessons, can increase comprehension and student engagement. This article also makes a very good point that when using music or a simple tune to remember phone numbers or rules, that they need to be able to remember those things without the song involved.