Sound Therapy: Using Music and Music Lessons to Sharpen Your ADHD/LD Child's Brain

Transcription

1 Sound Therapy: Using Music and Music Lessons to Sharpen Your ADHD/LD Child's Brain Sharlene Habermeyer, M.A. author of Good Music Brighter Children

2 Inspiration: Brandon Learning Issues: Auditory Processing Visual Motor/Perception Sensory Integration Issues Attention Deficit Disorder

3 The difficulties ADD/ADHD Child: Has difficulty staying on task, focusing, listening, understanding, etc Learning Disabled Child: Starts as auditory processing can hear fine, have difficulty processing what they hear. Can have difficulty with many areas of learning.

4 Music helps: Music builds the entire brain but especially these areas: Auditory Visual/Spatial Motor

5 Your Brain on Music Auditory: Speech & Language Reading Visual/Spatial Reading Comprehension Visual Tracking Math and Science Motor Brain Organization Motor cortices are the building blocks of the brain; foundation of visual and auditory systems

6 Why listen to classical music?

7 This is Classical Music: Gothic Cathedrals

8 Listening to Classical Music in Utero Donald Shetler, PhD Study: Mothers exposed fetus to 10 minutes each of both calming and stimulating music each day

9 Results: Listening to Classical Music At age Two: Stronger Memory Skills More developed Speech Patterns Greater articulation, sophistication and organization of language

10 Listening to Classical Music Dr. Georgi Lozanov Lozanov found that when we listen to certain pieces of classical music it changes the electromagnetic frequencies of the brain to 7.5 cycles per second; referred to as the Alpha Mode or Schumann Resonance At this frequency we can focus, concentrate, and learn better. Music examples: Handel: Water Music Bach: Brandenburg Concertos

11 Suggestions Listen to this music when needing to concentrate on lessons, studying for tests, writing papers or anytime you or your child needs to focus on important tasks. If your child does homework directly after school, have the music playing in the car on the way home it takes about 20 minutes for the brain to change to this mode

12 What Can Happen #1: Action: Listen to music while studying for spelling test #2: Result: Concentrate, focus better, stay on task #3: Change: Learn spelling words easier and quicker #4: Change+ Do better on spelling test #5: Transformation: Better attitude toward school and learning! Small incremental changes can lead to big success!

13 Fun Morning Suggestion: Listen & March Marching is similar to crawling it organizes the brain and gets the brain working on all 4 cylinders!

14 Sound Therapies Dr. Alfred Tomatis The Tomatis Method: helps children with learning issues; reading, dyslexia, auditory processing, even autism. It retrains the muscles in the ear thereby strengthening the auditory and motor functions It uses filtered classical music of Mozart and stimulates the entire inner ear particularly the vestibule and cochlea. Uses electronic gating music shifts from low to high frequencies

15 Sound Therapies Ron B. Minson, M.D. Integrated Listening Systems (ils) The program integrates music, movement and visual stimulation and exercises a network of sensory systems: visual, auditory, motor, vestibular and emotional ils trains the brain to process sensory, cognitive and emotional information more effectively. The program uses acoustically modified (filtered) classical music (Alene Villaneda)

16 Benefits of Playing a Musical Instrument Drs. Shaw & Rauscher: Gave 3-year olds piano lessons 2x/week for minutes each time. In 8 months the children showed a 46% increase in spatial temporal reasoning. Continued studies with children from ages 3-7. Spatial Intelligence: related to higher forms of math, science, and reading comprehension

17 Brain Benefits of Playing a Musical Instrument Other benefits of playing a musical instrument include: Helps LD & ADD children with attention, concentration, impulse control, motivation and memory ( Effects of Music Education on Children with Disabilities ) Rhythm in music helps children with reading difficulties ( Relationship Between Musical Ability and Literacy Skills ) Helps LD children with reading comprehension and vocabulary ( Use of Music to Enhance Reading Skills of Students with Disabilities ) Both sides of the brain and front/back portions of the brain are utilized when a child learns an instrument it is as though fireworks are going off in the brain

18 Brain Benefits of Playing a Musical Instrument A recent study at the University of Vermont College of medicine found when children study a musical instrument the following occurs: Increased thickness in parts of the brain responsible for executive functioning, which includes working memory, attention control and organizational skills. The more a child trained on an instrument, it accelerated cortical organization in attention skill, anxiety management and emotional control (Dr. James Hudziak, University of Vermont College of medicine) The researchers believe that musical training could serve as a powerful treatment of cognitive disorders like ADD/ADHD.

19 Suggestion: Music Lessons Enroll your child in music lessons by 18 months of age. Two beginning programs: Let s Play Music or Kindermusik (Orff-Schulwerk, Dalcroze, Kodály)

20 Music Lessons When the time comes, enroll your child in private lessons piano is a good place to start, but branch out to orchestra or band instruments Good instruments for the ADD/ADHD or LD child: String Instruments Woodwinds *Percussion (Journal: National Association for Music Education)

21 Frank Wilson, M.D. Learning to play an instrument refines the development of the brain and the entire neurological system. It also connects and develops the motor systems of the brain in a way that cannot be done by any other activity. Frank Wilson, MD, professor of neurology, University of California School of Medicine, San Francisco

22 Where is Brandon today? Brandon graduated from a fouryear university with a double major in film and philosophy with straight A s. He is currently working in the Film industry, writes a blog on philosophical subjects and yes he listens to classical music on his train commute to work every day

23 For more information: