Wonderful article on dealing with autism/special need students in music class.
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Keys to Success with Autistic Children
Structure, predictability, and consistency are essential for students on the autism spectrum
By Scott H. Iseminger
Early childhood and elementary music teachers face particular challenges when including children with special needs in the music classroom. Children with autism act out and misbehave not because they are autistic, but because their fears and anxieties are so great. Knowing that children with autism and other neurological disorders have distinct emotional and physical needs can help us adapt our music classrooms and our interactions to accommodate them. Let’s take a look at what these children need and consider some guidelines for helping them in our music classrooms.
Children with autism and other special needs thrive on predictability. If you watch an autistic child’s play, you’ll notice a tendency to line up objects—symmetry and order are important. You’ll also notice a propensity for routine. They tend to play with the same toys in the same fashion and to watch the same video, or even the same scene in a video, over and over again. They’ll wear the same clothes and eat a limited variety of foods, keeping it the same from day to day. How can we best accommodate the need for consistency and structure in the music classroom? With just a little planning and an intentional teaching method, we can create a safe environment for special learners and help them have a successful experience in the music setting.
Physical Structure
First, you can create physical structure by establishing a seating arrangement and keeping it the same throughout the year. A child-size chair creates a sense of space for the child and keeps her body anchored, especially when her feet can rest on the floor. If there are no chairs, use carpet squares or outline a square with masking tape, perhaps writing the child’s name on the tape.
A very active child may find it difficult to sit for a lengthy session. Assign the child two chairs, across the room from each other. For one song, the child sits in one chair, for song two he sits in the other, then back to the first chair, and so on. In this way, the active child gets the movement he craves from walking between chairs.
Some children will refuse to sit in a chair, yet they still need the structure, and you still need to establish your authority. Take pictures of the child sitting in his chair and sitting on a carpet square. Post these two pictures, and ask the child to choose between them when he comes into music class. This will give him a sense of control, and you prescribe the limits.
Routine Structure
Second, keep the structure of your class the same from session to session. For example, always start with a fun rhythm activity to stimulate the children and get them going. Then finish with a quiet relaxing or listening activity to calm them. Although the exact song or activity may vary, the basic nature of the activity is the same and predictable. The child on the autism spectrum will know what to expect in music class from week to week and will learn to trust you and feel more secure.
Because they need routine, children on the autism spectrum do best with a daily morning routine, eating routine, bathroom routine, and bedtime routine. Establish your music routine the very first day of class. If an event occurs in the usual music class routine, the child will learn that the event should take place on a regular basis. On one of my first days teaching a class of junior high students with autism, I had an unfortunate series of events. Ten minutes into class, the electricity went out. At that very moment, the guitar pick I was using flew out of my hand. The next music session, ten minutes into class, one of the more rigid students suddenly turned out the lights, turned off the stereo, and grabbed the guitar pick out of my hand and threw it across the room. The routine had been established, and he was going to make sure I maintained it!
On the first day of music class at the start of the year, or on the child’s first day in the music room, establish your routine as a whole experience. As a rule, the child will show signs of discomfort or distress because she doesn’t know the routine; not knowing what to expect is very scary for her. If possible, continue through the routine despite her signs of discomfort. If she’s removed from music class after the third song, this removal becomes part of the routine, and she’ll expect to be removed after the third song of each music session. However, if you can overlook and tolerate some obvious discomfort and distress and complete your routine, the child will have experienced the whole routine and established it in her brain. When she returns for the second day, she’ll more likely show fewer signs of distress, because she now knows what to expect. Surely exceptions need to be made in cases of severe aggression, but establishing the routine from the very beginning is key to creating a sense of predictability.
For an alternate approach, instead of jumping into the deep end all at once, try introducing the child to music class for only short periods. Start the short period during the ending routine rather than the beginning. Remember that predictability is key. If you’ve established the routine for the last five minutes with a quiet listening time, the autistic child will get used to this closing procedure and will correctly predict it. Introduce the child to the last five minutes of music class for several sessions. After several successful five-minute sessions, the child can come in for the song or activity preceding the final activity, and so on, adding on preceding events until finally the child is in music class for the full period. This slow and steady approach can be very beneficial for children with special needs because it ensures success from the start. (This procedure can also be used for a child who’s already enrolled in music class but who may be struggling with behaviors and feeling overwhelmed.)
Visual Aids
Children with special needs are concrete learners. Visual information makes your words more concrete and establishes structure and predictability. From the student’s perspective, a picture or an object he can see or touch is more concrete than an abstract word that floats in the air and then is gone. For example, the child will know what to do when shown a picture of himself sitting in a chair or standing or playing the recorder. Those on the autism spectrum are often stronger visual learners than auditory learners. It’s not merely a preference; just as a blind child needs tactile information, the autistic child has a tremendous need for visual information.
Fortunately, music teachers naturally provide visual information as they teach by using charts, books, papers, and musical instruments. Teaching with rhythm notation and beat icons makes rhythm a visual event, thus making learning easier for children with special needs than teaching by rote. Pointing to four quarter notes or four icons while the class is patting a steady beat is helpful. Pictures of an actual recorder with the correct fingering modeled is more useful than a typical symbolic fingering chart. You can print lyrics on a chart or a piece of paper with pictures made from design software like Boardmaker, or you can decorate counting songs with pictures of each number and of each object.
Building on the importance of structure and predictability, make your lesson plan visual. Just as an ensemble director lists the pieces for the day on the chalkboard, a general music teacher can list the activities for that particular session. This list can simply include the titles of the songs, which you cross out or erase as they’re completed. Alternatively, make a tab system using Boardmaker and Velcro or magnets. As each song or activity is completed, you or the child can pull off each tab and put it in a folder marked “All Done.” Choose tabs with pictures paired with words, tabs with just words, tabs with icons, or simply tabs with numbers. Even if a child can’t read words or numbers, he can still see the tabs disappear and can see when the end is near.
A tab system can also be useful for managing behavior. For a 30-minute class period, prepare a file folder with a Velcro strip with the numbers 1 through 6. At the end of the strip, post a picture of a reward, such as a favorite book or a swing on the playground. You may vary these rewards from week to week, asking the child which she prefers. For every five minutes the child follows directions and stays on task, she earns a star-shaped tab. Once she sees all six tabs are in place, she knows that the 30 minutes are finished, and she gets her chosen reward.
Tabs work well for establishing negative consequences—making reprimands more concrete and structured. Instead of verbal reprimands to which typical children respond, use a card with three square tabs. At the first verbal warning, remove the first square; repeat for a second infraction. Removal of the third tab means removal from the group or classroom, or whatever you deem appropriate. Using tab systems in this way, the autistic child can see what is coming next and when the finish line has been reached, making him feel comfortable and confident in the music classroom.
The Unknown
Planning for the unknown can avoid creating a great deal of fear and anxiety for children with special needs. Any sort of change can be difficult for these children, because suddenly the predictability of their world has been shaken apart. If the child is used to singing songs and playing instruments in music class, it may be very difficult if not impossible to expect him to adapt suddenly to a day of watching an educational music video. If the child is accustomed to having music class in the music room and one day out of the blue the class is on the stage for a concert dress rehearsal, it can create havoc. Behaviors and tantrums will certainly follow. Remember, these children do not act out or have tantrums because they have autism; it’s because they fear the unknown.
Out of respect for this rigidity, we need to take an intentional approach when introducing change into the lives of our special learners. For example, announce, “Today is the last day the class will be playing the autoharp because next week starts a unit on playing the recorder.” Use a large calendar and mark “last day for autoharp” and “first day for recorders” or “autoharp STOP” and “recorders YES.” In this way, the children are prepared for change and can predict future events.
If you show The Nutcracker on video each December, put a picture of the videocassette, DVD, or a television on the calendar for that particular date at least a week ahead of time. When you finish practicing a certain song, put it in an “All Done” folder for songs the students won’t be rehearsing anymore. If you’re going to have a dress rehearsal on the stage, post a picture of the risers—or even better, a picture of the children standing on the risers—on that particular date. You can develop the idea further by writing a short, simple picture story for the autistic child to read during the week preceding the major changes.
A field trip can be truly frightening for children on the autism spectrum. The trip will be a break in the customary daily routine in an unfamiliar place, and the children don’t know what to expect. Try putting together a short picture story with simple captions. For instance, one story could start with a picture of a bus with the date for the field trip; then include pictures of, for example, the outside of an orchestra hall, the lobby, and the auditorium, followed by the bus picture (for the return trip). The final image would be a picture of the school.
With digital technology, a short picture story is easy to create. Perhaps the field trip destination has a brochure or postcards you could cut up to create the story of the field trip. Include a schedule listing the time you’ll leave school, the time you’ll arrive at the destination, a list of the songs to be performed, and the time you’ll return to school. If this is an annual trip, you can simply reuse the same story every year.
Keeping the number of changes to a minimum will make things easier as well. For example, following a concert, choir directors often like to start with all new literature. A more helpful approach would be to review the choir’s favorite song from the concert, then teach a couple of new songs, and finish with a familiar song. In this way, a little of the new is mixed in with a little of the old.
To be sure, including children with special needs can be a challenge. However, with a little planning and effort, you can create a classroom environment that’s structured, consistent, and predictable. When you take an intentional approach to lesson plans and include a great deal of visual information, you create a safe and comfortable place where these children can feel relaxed and secure. When special learners feel supported and safe, they can achieve success, have fun, and create music. What can be more rewarding than one of our special learners having a successful and enriching experience in our music classroom?
Helpful Hints
Children with autism have distinct sensory needs—textures, sounds, visual stimulation, and other sensory input can overwhelm students and cause them to shut down or misbehave.
- Turn off your computer’s monitor during music class if you run a screen saver. Children with autism can become mesmerized or distracted by a screen saver’s rotating patterns.
- Keep a pair of professional construction worker’s headphones (available from home building centers) in your classroom. Many children with autism are extremely sensitive to the volume and frequency of certain sounds. A good pair of headphones can help them focus on the task at hand. The headphones don’t block out the sound; they simply bring it down to a more agreeable level for their brains to process.
- Conduct music class without the overhead lights if possible. Fluorescent lights can be both a visual and an auditory distraction for children with autism.
- Keep some heavy sandbags or large beanbags in class. Deep pressure can aid a child with sensory needs, and they can put the bags on their lap or head when necessary.
- Ask your school’s occupational therapist for advice as you try to create an agreeable environment to accommodate specific sensory needs.
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Scott Houlne Iseminger teaches at Krejci Academy (Little Friends, Inc.), a therapeutic day school for children and adolescents with behavioral, emotional, developmental, and autistic spectrum disorders in Naperville, Illinois.
–Scott H. Iseminger, April 2009, © MENC: The National Association for Music Education. This article originally appeared in the April 2009 issue of Teaching Music magazine.
