Music Therapy Project Review

Name: Leung Lok Wai Louis

SID: 1155092495

Introduction

The target clients that we chose are clients with mental retardation. We chose this
specific group of clients is that we hope to improve their motor and social skills,
which can help them to fit in the society and support their own life in the future.
Clients with mental retardation are less likely to remember information, use abstract
concepts, display logical reasoning, and make good decisions. Music therapy can help
them to improve motor skills, develop verbal and non-verbal and social skills, develop
emotional and musical skills.

Activity Detail

The activity we designed is called 「左右高低乜都得」.We hope that we can

improve the motor and social skills of mild mental retardation clients. The activity is
designed for 5-6 clients with mental retardation, in the age of 6-8 years old. We
included some percussive instruments, wrist bells and piano in the activity. The clients
will sit in a half-circle shape with their instruments.

The activity 「左右高低乜都得」is mainly separated into two parts: 「傳左傳右」

and「喂高喂低」. In the first part「傳左傳右」, we assigned different so-fa names

to each client in order from “do” to “so”. Therapist and helpers then guided them
through the first level of recognizing their own assigned so-fa names with the help of
piano. After ensure clients do recognized their own so-fa names, the activity proceed
to level two. The client who start the game need to pass the note to the next person
with different so-fa names. They need to have eye contact and physical movement
towards the receiver in order to complete the action.

The second part is 「喂高喂低」. Clients are provided with a wrist bell and they

need to follow the designed storyline to do the corresponding action. The first level is
to help them establish the concept of high and low with bird and fish respectively.
When the therapist playing in high register of the piano, it is representing the bird.
Clients need to hold their wrist bell high and copy the movement of a bird. When the
lower register of the piano is played out, they need to lower their hands and copy the
movements of a fish. In the second level, therapist then began the story telling with
birds and fishes, and clients followed the story to do the corresponding movement of
birds or fishes.

Role

During the activity, I am the helper who was involved within the clients. I need to lead
clients to follow the instructions of the therapist and to give hints when clients do not

understand of the activity. For example, in 「傳左傳右」, I was giving hints to

clients about where is the corresponding so-fa name person and guiding them to do

the passing actions. In 「喂高喂低」, I was standing at the middle and guide clients

to do the responding actions of birds and fishes, so that they will have a example to
follow.

Review

In reviewing my own performance during the activity, I believe that I have been a

successful role model for clients to follow. For example in 「喂高喂低」, I have

done large scale movements representing the birds and fishes for clients to follow.
Clients could discover the changes easily and followed after me in a shorter period of
time. Moreover, I have move in an exaggerated way to create different sound volumes
to be followed. In the activity, the story teller did describe the scale of movements of
animals, like when the fish is being chased by the bird, the fish need to swim faster. In
responding to that plot, I have moved violently and produce a bigger sound from that.
Clients could also respond to the sound and repeat after me.

On the other hand, I have not communicated well with other helpers and therapists,

especially in the first part of 「傳左傳右」. During the time when assigning so-fa

names for each client, I did not respond to the situation yet in which I hesitated about
what action should I take. As a result, it takes a longer time for us to help clients to get
familiar with the assigned so-fa names. Secondly, my leading actions are not enough
in some occasions. For example in the level two of 「傳左傳右」, I was trying to

lead clients and giving hints to their next target. However, my movement is a bit small
and not engaging enough to help clients with the responding action.

In order to improve in the next re-run, there are a few things that I will plan to do. For
the first problem in assigning so-fa names, I suggest that we could add some actions
to represent different so-fa names at the same time, like putting hands on our head is
representing “do”. Moreover, we could distribute some so-fa name cards to each
client of their own so-fa names. Both possible ways are to help them remembering the
so-fa names in a physical approach.

For improving the leading hints in 「傳左傳右」, I suggest that we could use some

visible guiding tools like pointers to give hints to clients. This could help us to give
clearer hints and flows of who is the client that we should be focusing on. Moreover,
we could work on the cooperation of team, having one helper gives hints to clients,
and another one could guide clients to do action physically. This could solve the
problem and assist the host to maintain a smoother rundown.

Conclusion

I am feeling difficult and hesitant when I am the leader or helper of the of the activity.
Since we did not really get in touch with examples of clients with mental retardation,
it is hard and challenging to predict and respond to their actions at that moment.
Moreover, we might easily use our own interpretation of majority people on our
clients. As a result, we would easily ignore some serious problem and the needs of
clients during the rundown of the activity, which we totally treated them as majority
people at some point.

I have learnt that about the needs and actions of people with mental retardation. They
need external help in certain aspects like memorizing skills and motor skills, and we
need to treat them with care and understand their needs while carrying out our
activities. Besides, we need to have better and detail preparation before music therapy
related activities in order to cater the needs of clients. If there are chances to provide
more musical activities for the same clients, I will suggest singing some songs which
related to daily life and routines with the clients. They could learn and master these
skills in a more leisure way which develop their leisure skills at the same time.