Just got back from a day conference put on by the downsyndromeOK group. The talk on signing was excellent (though the only signs I learnt were 'baby' and glass). It was lovely to meet another mother who has an 11month old son - he is the youngest of 6. His mum just returned the breastpump last week after using it for 11 months. Her son didn't have a heart condition though.
One of the things I was looking forward to finding out more about was music therapy. When I went to the careers officer at school this was one of the options offered to me but my mother staunchly refused to allow me to go to music college - it was a 'waste of money' she told me. That was how I ended up in the Army....
Anyway, here was a lady (91 years old) who had devoted 35 years of her life to working at the nordoff-robbins centre in NW london. She started by telling us the principles involved (come to think of it though, she didn't actually mention the word 'principle'). She obviously was a disciplined musician herself or she could never have played the piano as skillfully as she does. Her favoured method, however, deprives her victims of the priveledge of learning the grammar of music and encourages a total absence of discipline. I understand that she is saying that anger and frustration are overcome by allowing the children freedom of expression and she states that they progress to more orderly use of the drumsticks over time - however, it remains that she never gives the children the necessary tools to express in a meaningful and structured way anything which you or I would recognise as 'music'. I felt like asking many questions but time was short and this was a venerable old lady who was obviously beyond having her opinions about music therapy renovated. I wonder if there is any manifestation, out there in the big wide world, of using music to help disabled people to develop other than that which she expounded. She even suggested that some parents might get the LEA to agree to paying for 'music therapy' sessions for their children .... What a waste of tax-payers money.
Watching the videos was very shocking, here were children who were being manipulated by the 'therapist' in the same way one imagines 'clients' being manipulated by psychotherapists.
Now the question is, can one use a structured approach to music to teach children with down syndrome to sing, use percussion instruments or maybe the piano? I have just got the Light Education Ministries 'Gift of Music' course which might be useable for Victoria, I certainly have noticed that Victoria very much likes music so I hope I will be able to discover a way to integrate it in order to help her to develop to the best of her potential.
The funniest thing about all this was that when I got home and sat by the pump I switched on my MP3 player (as usual) to hear Rushdoony continuing in his exposition of the meaninglessness and aimlessness of greek thinking. He was saying that once man has declared 'God is dead' it is not long before he is facing the inevitable 'man is dead'. If man is made in the image of God and man is given over to death becaue of sin, once he has turned from God , death is the only possibility. With God there is meaning, logic, structure, purpose, direction; without God there is ........ music therapy.....
Timothy went into the kitchen and asked Thomas about how the day had gone, he cautioned 'don't ask mummy about the music therapy talk!'. Guess what Timothy asked me about?
There was a lovely presentation given by a young lady with d.s. She said she had been home-taught until the age of 11. I have her mothers name and address and hope to write to her. She mentioned (unfortunately) that she 'liked her booze' - Simon asked (in his inimitable way) - in the comfort and privacy of our own home, mercifully, 'what are booze?' - he wondered why everyone laughed at that point! I furthered his education accordingly.