If all goes well, I'm hoping to update this here and there this summer with pictures and fun stories of my adventures in Romania. Not sure how well internet that we'll have will do with pictures. But those who are local- FEAR NOT! Mark sent me a digital photo frame. So I just put in my memory card and bing! I might just take the card to the store and make a cd of photos and upload them to my computer from there than saving them to the Kodak program first. (its a pain!)
I hate to admit it, but I had NO CLUE what I was getting into with this program. Not that I've changed my mind but its a lot more intense than just going and playing with kids 5 days a week. One of the prep classes focuses on our research paper. While in the field, we have to use 3 case studies of different children that somehow relate to our topic.
Note: this is a rough draft and not 100% finalized for an introduction or anything, but I'd share a little more of what I'm doing there. Perhaps its my love for music, but I've fallen captive to researching music therapy. It is becoming more popular with age. Unfortunately I cant take my trumpet to Romania with me, but I can use toys in the orphanage such as drums, sticks and most easily accessible- feet and hands- to create rhythms and songs with the children. Basically its a chance to act as a therapist without the Masters degree in a different setting.
Can music therapy increase or improve communication in children with multiple disabilities? I became interested in this as I learned that many of the children in the orphanages don't speak very much. This is a culmination of the workers who don't have time to spend time individually with the children, and some of the children have disabilities such as Down Syndrome, or being deaf and as a result, they have little to no communication with others. Though I understand that some of these children will never speak the way I do, I am curious to see if music therapy can increase their responsiveness. Music therapy has been shown to improve social responsiveness. At first the child looks to the adult for a response indicator. The child will respond to the therapist's actions once they understand a correct response to the situation. The process of music therapy often starts out independent as the child learns and experiments with the new instruments, or is fascinated with the noise they can make with their hands and feet. Eventually, the child and therapist create music together as the child begins to interact musically. As this occurs, the child has already improved communication in a musical context by repeating rhythms and sounds. My research will focus on not only trying to succeed in this, but helping the child apply that communication technique to non-musical situations in every day life.
