5 Main Benefits of Drumming for Children With Special Needs

Does your child have challenges with speech and articulation? Eye-hand coordination? Or even having difficulty with social skills or social cues? Then drumming maybe the right tool for your child to overcome and build on some of these challenges.

There has been a lot of research on the benefits of drumming over the past few decades. Drumming has been shown to help reduce depressions, boost immune systems and build self-esteem. In this blog I want to focus on five main benefits of drumming for children with speical needs.

1. Increase Communication and Speech

Drums can reinforce speech, vocalizations, sounds and even help with sentence building. You can use drumming to reinforce word syllables and then expand to full sentences. Have the child sound out each syllable or word as they simultaneously play it on the drum.

2. Support Eye-Hand Coordination/Motor Skills

Drumming can help strengthen upper body control, arm movement and increase eye-hand coordination, particularly if you use more than one drum. Drumming with mallets helps with reaching, grasping, fluidity of movement and fine motor skills.

3. Develop Social Skills

Groups drumming, with the proper facilitation, is a powerful exercise for people of all ages to strengthen social skills. Group drumming teaches children to listen, pay attention, turn-taking, sharing, and taking cues from one another.

4. Support Emotional Needs/Impulse Control

Drumming can help a child learn to regulate their emotions. It can be very useful for expressing emotions and to "get it out." Drumming can vent aggressions, and invite in a calmer state of mind, particularly improve impulse control.

5. Improve Self-Esteem and Fun!

Drumming is catchy and can be a lot of fun. If you have ever been in a drumming group you can surely attest to this. Drumming is a great way for children with special needs to play and to get physical exercise.

Drumming combines motor movement with auditory and visual feedback, which makes it a great tool for strengthening a variety of skills for children with special needs. Since drumming is multi-sensory, it facilitates greater engagement, encourages learning, brain function, and skill building all while having fun! I have seen drumming to be very effective for my clients. I hope you'll give it a try!

To get you started, I wrote a song that helps facilitate a fun drumming experience while working on various skills mentioned above. To download the full song, click on the image to the right, check it out and let me know what you think. Happy drumming!

You can also view my youtube video on how to make your own rhythm sticks! Click Here To View

For FREE songs, videos and tips on how to support children with special needs through music click here.

Keeping To The Rhythm - Digital Tracks

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Top 10 Christmas Gifts For Children With Special Needs

At this time of year, parents often ask for Christmas gift suggestions for their child with special needs. For these parents, it can be quite challenging to find the right gift - a gift that is fun, not over-stimulating, and has some therapeutic value.

So in time for the holidays season, I have created a top-10 list of my current favorites. I have also included its potential therapeutic value under each link so you can see which gift would be best suited for your child. (Click on each item to view its description)

1. Sounds Shapes

• Gross motor skills
• Impulse control
• Sensory input

2.  Cabasa

• Fine motor skills
• Stimulation and sensory needs

3. Ocean Drum

• Relaxation
• Sensory needs
• Impulse control

4. Melodica

• Fine motor skills
• Oral and breath control
• Eye-hand coordination

5. Ukulele

• Fine motor skills
• Eye-hand coordination
• Gross motor skills

6. Kazoo

• Oral motor skills
• Breath control

7. Legos

• Fine motor skills
• Joint attention skills
• Task focus
• Sharing
• Turn-taking skills
• Problem-solving skills

8. Eggspressions

• Social skills
• Emotional awareness
• Emotional Development

9. Trampoline

• Sensory input/needs
• Gross motor skills
• Balance/coordination skills 

10. Dizzy Disc

• Sensory input/needs
• Gross motor skills
• Balance/coordination skills

I hope you discovered something new and useful from this list. If you have any toys that you would like to add to this list, please add it in the comment section below.

Happy Holidays!

John Mews, MA, MTA

For FREE songs, videos and tips on how to support children with music click here.

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Don't take it from me, its in the Research! Music Therapy and Autism: Significant Supporting Evidence

Image courtesy of samuiblue/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

I can't count how many times I've been asked by parents and other professionals about scientific evidence to prove the efficacy of music therapy interventions with children with autism.  The study in the link below was conducted in comparison to other non-music based therapies, and the evidence was....significant!

I encourage you to click on the link below to learn more about how music therapy can help a child with autism.  I have seen these effects everyday for the past ten years and am excited to finally be able to share with you the research that supports our daily work.

Here are just a few highlights of what the researcher found:

• Music Therapy produced longer events of joy and engagement of initiation
• Music Therapy develops social skills 
• Music Therapy is effective in increasing attention, focus, behavioural cues and interests
• With Music Therapy, children were better able to express their emotions and share them with others.
• There is significant evidence that Music Therapy supports social, emotional and motivational development in children with autism.

I often say to parents, "once a child is motivated and is having fun, their self-esteem is elevated."  A child with confidence can achieve more and will often work harder.  This is fundamental to our strength-based music therapy programs.  We begin with an improvisational program, building upon areas of strength to build confidence.  We then massage this into the overall goals and objectives of the program.  We have found this approach results in early successes and improved overall outcomes, just like this research indicates.  So don't take it from me, read the research yourself!

Here's the link:

Best Practice Autism: Autism and Improvisational Music Therapy