Music Therapy for Kids and Teens
Music Therapy can support neurodivergent children and adolescents, and children and adolescents living with disability and/or mental illness.
We provide all of our music therapy services for children and teens through our sister company, Queensland Paediatric Allied Health (QPAH). Our Director, Monica Zidar, is also a co-director of QPAH, an amazing organisation that brings the disciplines of music therapy and speech pathology together, in a collaborative way, to more effectively meet the needs of the children and adolescents we work with. Click below to be taken to QPAH’s website for more information.
Benefits of Music Therapy for Young Children
We so often get told by parents, when we ask why they are bringing their child for Music Therapy, that their child “just loves music” or that “music is one of the only things that they respond to”. We love to hear that! When your child responds to music, under the guidance of our qualified Registered Music Therapists, the potential they have to benefit from music therapy and achieve their therapeutic goals is profound.
Providing therapy in a predictable environment suited to your child’s sensory needs is our top priority because this is how we help your child to feel secure, safe, and calm. We do this using music and by adjusting the environment so the lighting is right and/or by providing equipment like a tunnel, gym ball or trampoline to meet their needs. When your child is regulated, then we move into addressing higher levels of functioning.
The benefits of music therapy come from how music and the elements of music (like the beat, melody and rhythm) are processed by our brain. Our brains love rhythm, strong beats and patterns, they underpin most things that we do, right down to our heartbeat. There are many benefits of using music therapy to work on communication, cognition, motor skills and coordination, self-regulation and sensory integration but, put simply, it makes it easier to achieve in these areas when the planned use of music is integrated by a Registered Music Therapist. Don’t forget the added (and arguably the most important) benefit of music therapy, it is fun and often brings joy and delight to the children who participate in it.