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Emma Roser Posts: 3
4/9/2020
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Last year, I had my first student with a visual impairment in my piano class. He was completely blind. He already played guitar and had a good understanding of music and notes. At first, I worked with him one-on-one and placed his hands where the notes should be for the song he wanted to learn (He was very interested in pop music). A coworker gave me cardstock with the braille alphabet and I cut those pieces and taped them to the keys on the piano. This helped the student a lot as sometimes he would get lost on the keyboard. I would play a few notes of the melody and he would copy it and we'd build from there. Since he wanted to learn chords as well, we worked those separately. He was getting there before the semester ended and he was no longer my student (darn those semester classes!)
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Kelly Chisholm Posts: 4
4/9/2020
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Jennifer Haber wrote:
I currently have a student with a visual impairment. I have enlarged all of the music on a photocopier to help her see. I also allow her to sit by herself instead of with a stand partner so that she can pull up the stand as close as possible to her. I have also made mp3 recordings for her to take home so that she can play along with them when practicing.
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Kelly Chisholm Posts: 4
4/9/2020
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My second year teaching, I had a student who was visually impaired and wanted to b in band. She was completely blind having 2 glass eyes. We talked about different instruments and I played there for her and she wanted to play trumpet. I explained how to buzz and I would let her touch my lips and feel how they were formed to make the sound then she would apply that to her lips. She made a great sound. I would make her CD's of a student playing a scale and I would say the name of the note with the valve combination and she would use that to memorize the fingerings. She sat with other trumpet players that helped her out and she had fantastic ear to hear the pitch and pick up the notes. She was one of my top players in 7th grade. I would write out the definitions of notes and they visually impaired teacher would put them in brail for me. She really loved playing and being one of the students in the band.
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Daniel Campbell Posts: 3
4/10/2020
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I had a trumpet player who was on the spectrum and was put in a class where he was the only brass player and struggled to make a good sound on his instrument. I worked with him daily using visual aids to demonstrate good embouchure, and using hands on resources to practice proper breath support. Eventually by working this routine, we worked on getting his embouchure set so that he could buzz and produce a clear sound on his mouthpiece. So we practiced this and slowly work on adding the horn so that he could begin to play the music that his classmates were playing.
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Brad Wharton Posts: 3
4/15/2020
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I have had a student in my band program for the past four years. He is visually impaired and can only read things very close up. As he is a percussionist, it is difficult for him to read the music and actually articulate on the percussion equipment. The percussion instructor and I enlarge his music for him to be able to read easier. We give him the new music ahead of time so that he can familiarize himself at home before it is needed in class. We also work with him to mark his music in bright colors so that he can differentiate musical notation and symbols on the page. My observation is that these strategies have been extremely helpful for him and have allowed him to enjoy reading and making music every day!
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Daniel Shea Posts: 4
4/16/2020
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I've had many students with disabilities over the years. Marcus was one of my favorites. He was mostly very happy to participate in all that he was able and I did my very best to make it such that he could do the "things" himself. That was a big deal to him. It was a real joy teaching him. His walking skills and some muscular coordination gave him a real hard time, but he kept at it.
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Brett Pikuritz Posts: 3
4/17/2020
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I've had several students that were ADD/ADHD or on the spectrum. One thing that some of these students struggle with is their attention span. An effective teaching tool that I have used to keep these students engaged is 'cueing'. While listening to a euphonium player perform their playing test for me in my office, I would often times hold up my hand in the playing position and cue them by showing them the valve combination for the starting note of each respective major scale. Verbal cueing, saying, 'Yes, that's it' also goes a long way with playing tests. Sometimes even a non-verbal head nod is enough to keep students on track; this gives them the little boost of confidence they need to stay on task and finish strong!
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David Pletincks Posts: 3
4/20/2020
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I've had several students with disabilities over the years. We, as arts educators, are accustomed to making the necessary accommodations in our instruction to work with these students and help them excel. One young I had in middle school choir for 3 years with Aspergers. She had perfect pitch and, by far, the most beautiful voice in my entire school. But her disability would cause her to speak things in class that would be best left unsaid. Things like, "the girls behind me are singing flat." Her parents were always 100% behind me and wanted me to treat her like any other child. Obviously, I'd have to handle the situation a bit different than another child, but I quickly discovered how her disability was going to manifest itself in my environment and I knew what I'd have to do in each instance to handle it.
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Russell Mofsky Posts: 3
4/21/2020
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I currently teach a middle school student who is in recovery from brain cancer. Her experience with the disease and treatment has left her weaker than her peers and left her with somewhat impaired fine motor control. During her first year in Beginning Band, last year, she played the baritone horn, reading in treble clef. We had to work very closely together throughout the year as she learned the fundamentals of scales, arpeggios, and how to read music. Her impaired fine motor skills have made learning valve fingerings more challenging for her than I think would normally be the case. This child is now in her second year of Beginning Band, and over the summer she switched to trumpet. Even though the fingerings are the same, she has struggled somewhat to adapt her embouchure. Prior to this quarantine period, she and I would work one on one after school so that I could give her the support that she needed. Accommodations and modifications I continue to make for her include re-writing or re-arranging the music we learn to help her master tricky rhythms and notes that are currently outside her range. A side effect of her illness and years long treatment/surgeries is that while she clearly is resilient, she is easily frustrated by her level of ability and it shows in her self-esteem. I offer her lots of pep talks and remind her of just how far she has come and how hard she has worked to attain her current level of ability. Even yesterday, during online extra help, we worked together for nearly an hour on the music she is currently learning in class. We went through the music measure by measure and made changes so that it felt doable for her. Once she masters the modified piece, we can try the next step which would be to see if she can play the high 'D's or syncopated rhythms that challenge her. I find that the extra time she and I spend together help reassure her that she can indeed learn to play the trumpet and hopefully learn to see herself in a new light.
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Darrell Haynes Posts: 3
4/23/2020
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I currently have a student with a hearing impairment in my percussion class. A hearing impairment affects any musician in how they are going to learn. In the class, she has to constantly watch demonstrations from myself and classmates working with her to make sure she is executing desired rhythm patterns and rudiments. She relies on sight to match up the feel of what she is seeing versus what she is physically executing. As she learns new things, she then connects the physical execution to continue to develop mastery.
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Julie Taylor Posts: 3
4/23/2020
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I currently have several students with intellectual and behavioral disabilities in my elementary music classes. One student in particular was unable to perform on the recorder along with the class and would get very upset. I found that having him wear ear protection and switching the instrument to a xylophone with colored sticker letter names for him to follow has allowed him to enjoy and participate very well with his peers. He sits close to me and I call out the letter names for him to play. This has worked very well for him since now he does not holler out in frustration during music. He repeats the letter name quietly to himself as he plays the corresponding bar and smiles.
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Jonathan Anderson Posts: 3
4/23/2020
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I have had many students with exceptionalities in my choir. Just last year I had a student who was visually impaired in my beginning choir class. I was not sure what to do at first, except make sure the student knew that I was going to do everything I could in order to help her achieve her musical goals. I talked with some colleagues at the college in the neighboring city and we were able to get her brail music, however, she didn't know how to read it. So I had to learn how to read brail music so I could explain verbally and show in a hands on fashion the music. She unfortunately did not stay in the class very long. I was excited to continue to work with her and her Paraprofessional learn how to read music and sing well.
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Terrion Nelson Posts: 3
4/24/2020
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I have a student who has an Intellectual Disability. She was put in the beginning chorus last year, my first year in high school. She was shy and reserved and did not interact with many students. She seemed to have a problem processing information and memorizing her music. However, this year she is in my advanced girls ensemble and has grown and matured tremendously. She has become better at learning her music, as she is more secure in this smaller ensemble. She is focused and not afraid to sing out more and has been able to form relationships.
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Adren Hance Jr Posts: 5
4/26/2020
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My student in Beginning 6th grade band is profoundly deaf. His disability creates many challenges for his opportunity to learn in my class. One way he is challenged is aural communication. "Diamond Boy" (his signed nickname) also has difficulty phonating or forced speaking which makes his communications difficult without help. Although he is provided with an interpreter, I am concerned with his social interactions with his peers. A possible stigma and misunderstanding of his deafness by his classmates is a big challenge as well.
Diamond Boy chose the Tuba! The deafness does make it challenging for him to perceive a quality sound (or have background knowledge of any sound). After his successful performance phase of student-centered performance, the difficulty of an ensemble-centered performance is next. We helped meet this challenge by building a large hollow platform on which he sat WITH the snare and bass drum. Diamond Boy could feel the bass in his feet, the snare through his seat, AND the vibration of the entire ensemble.
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Anthony Zoeller Posts: 3
4/27/2020
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I've had several students with disabilities over the years in class, but the story that always springs to mind is of an autistic student in my general music class. While I try my best to get students to read the notes, I also value the ability to hear and remember, which is a different, yet no less valuable, skill. Anyway, I had the students read the rhythms on a page, and then we would practice them, as everyone does, and this sixth-grader focused on listening instead of reading, and after two or three hearings, he was able to execute the entire page of rhythms from memory! I mean, it was probably twenty measures long! He had several behavior problems, but I always kept him totally involved in the class, and I found that the students were quite compassionate. This happened in my second year of teaching, and it taught me several things, including 1) students with a disability in one area can be fantastically talented in another, unknown area that we might not value enough, and 2) that all students benefit from the inclusion of SWD, because they can learn to see the whole student and not their disability.
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Aislinn Manning Posts: 3
5/1/2020
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I work at a school specifically for students with learning and/or learning related disabilities. I have made many accommodations and changes to my daily teaching in order to make music accessible to all levels of learners. Making sure they feel safe and invited into the learning atmosphere is the most important thing; above any music making skills/capabilities. They need to know it's okay to make mistakes and that it's part of the learning process. I often rewrite parts for my students, help them label their music by labeling music and highlighting sections that are the same/similar and creating some sort of color coded visual layout for those students. They are allowed to test out several instruments and pick the one that they are most successful at. We often focus on the "basics" several times a year in order to help them be successful musicians. More so than I would with a gen. ed. population. Every child is allowed to perform at the best of their abilities - if that means simplifying the music so they are just playing a root note for the entire song, that's what we do! It's about involvement and encouragement more than the end product being "perfect."
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Michael Dye Posts: 3
5/2/2020
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During my career I have had many vocal music students with documented disabilities. It seems the ESE specialists at my high school like to place some of their music-loving students with various disabilities in my choral classroom. I have had two blind students, several hearing impair students, and my share of students with both learning disabilities and behavior issues. No matter the disability, it seems the community of musicians around them support and embrace each one of them. I encourage complete inclusion, no matter the disability. This means participation in all learning and all singing. Each student performs at every concert and at district and state-level MPA's. Knowing that a fellow ensemble member has a disability becomes an opportunity for students without a disability, and the student who faces a challenge, to work together toward a common goal. Both share the talents and energy both possess for the betterment of the choir. I have document ESE students in every one of my six choirs; each with an IEP. Children with autism, in various places on the spectrum, are most common. Two of most musically successful singers (vocalists, all-state, composition, etc.) have IEP's and easily discernible disabilities. The most challenged child is a ninth-grade girl with aural, visual, speech, and other learning disabilities. She spends most of her day in the ESE classroom. She has a difficult time singing in pitch, singing too loud, reading the music and words, and comprehending verbal and written instruction. With help from her classmates, and individual coaching from me, my assistant, and older students, she has learned, inside the team, to listen more carefully to what tone and intonation she produces. Her fellow singers do in-class coaching in theory while I teach them. Combined with the accommodations made for her, she is successful. While she will never make all-state or receive a music scholarship, onstage, offstage, in and out of chorus, she fits into something special. She uses the resources she arrived with, and has subsequently learned in chorus, to become a contributing member to her chorus family and a person with a "place" in our school.
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Nancy King Posts: 3
5/2/2020
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I had a keyboard student who was visually impaired (legally blind). I used a special music stand constructed to to bring the music closer to his eyes and 2 stand lights to brighten the page. I also enlarged the music to aid his vision. Without the accommodations he would have been frustrated and may have given up, but with these accommodations and a few extra help sessions, he excelled and was one of my best students.
I also have a band student who played trumpet. Her freshman year she was diagnosed with a brain tumor. Following her surgery she went through months of therapy for speech and the left side of her body. When she returned to school her sophomore year I wanted her to be a part of the marching band, so she played with the sideline percussion. For concert band I switched her to euphonium as she was able to hook her left arm around the instrument and hold it in her lap. By her junior year she marched (although still in a leg brace and without the use of her left hand) with the trumpet section and this year she auditioned and is on the leadership team.
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Tosha Williams Posts: 3
5/5/2020
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I have had a student who was a Quadriplegic and confined to a wheelchair. This did not impair her ability to sing/participate in chorus, show choir or the school musical. For choreography, I incorporated in the movements and formations, a fellow student(s) moving her wheelchair or partnering with her in the wheelchair. She needed no accommodations for singing tests but used a laptop for written music tests. For discussion questions, she went into another room or stayed after class to record her discussion on a voice activation system.
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David Hines Posts: 3
5/7/2020
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Describe at least one way you have used technology to meet the needs of a student with a disability in your classroom. Be sure to describe the specific technology and how it assisted the student with a disability.
Many times students with disabilities have difficulty grasping the concepts of introductory notes and rhythms. Using (CAI) I have set up e-centers to accommodate these students. I have used the letter strategy in combination with the Essentials of Music Theory software program. The program is fun and interactive, provides immediate feedback, and repetition when incorrect answers are provided. Students are able to move at their own pace and return to review information, which they have forgotten.
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