The Power of Music

By: Laura Payne, OTR/L Kaleidoscope Therapy

Music has power. Power to affect our emotions and moods. Power to affect how we move. Power to connect people together. Have you ever noticed how you start bobbing your head, tapping a foot, or swaying to a good beat? Relaxing your muscles to a peaceful melody? Smiled and sat up straighter when your favorite song came on? For these reasons, music can be an amazing therapeutic tool.

We listen with our brain and our body to gather information from our environment, which in turn helps us to respond to our environment – whether for social interaction, survival, learning, relaxation, or just for fun. To ‘hear’ something is passive, but true listening is an extension of the sense of hearing that requires action and encourages attention and engagement.

Did you know that we have 8 senses, not just 5!? Everyone learns about hearing, sight, taste, touch, and smell. There are also vestibular (sense of balance and stability), interoception (internal sense of hunger, thirst, fullness, pain, needing to use the bathroom, etc.), and proprioception (sense of knowing where each part of your body is within the space around you without needing to see it).

Therapeutic Listening is a tool used by trained therapists with people aged two (2) and over, that is adapted to each person’s unique needs. The music, sometimes modified, uses sound vibrations sent through headphones to stimulate the central nervous system through the inner ear. Depending on the type of music, it can have stimulating or relaxing effects on the body. When combined with a related activity, the brain and body can learn to regulate and adjust – whether the goal is to activate and strengthen muscles, use those muscles in coordinated ways, increase attention and awareness, or to calm and regulate emotions.

Potential Benefits:
Improvement with:
• awareness and attention
• self-regulation
• sensory integration
• breath stimulation and control
• posture
• motor coordination
• timing and sequencing of movements
• social interaction/connection
• language and communication motivation*
• oral motor and articulation skills*

Decreased:
• Anxiety
• Ear infections *

*Note: Therapeutic Listening does not directly teach speech and articulation skills and is not a replacement for Speech Therapy. It is a tool to help facilitate skill development by stimulating muscles and nerves associated with speech and communication.

Sensory Integration is the ability to receive, process, and respond to sensory input from inside the body, as well as from the environment.

Music has the power to motivate and move us in so many ways. If you are interested in learning more about Therapeutic Listening and how it can help you or someone you know, you can read more about it at http://www.vitallinks.com or email Laura at laura@kaleidoscope-hsv.com.