Musiek as terapeutiese middel vir kinders met leerprobleme

Abstract

Not all pupils of average intelligence can be said to make satisfactory progress at school. Frequently some of them, for some reason or other, fall behind in certain areas of the curriculum. Unless timely action is taken, serious learning problems may develop with ultimate detrimental effect upon the pupil's progress. This study is aimed at determining to what extent music therapy can be successfully applied in the case of Std. I pupils whose progress at school is not commensurate with their I.Q. First of all a study was undertaken of the available literature on learning problems and subsequently of that dealing with music therapy. Finally a programme was devised for using music therapy with groups. This programme is particularly concerned with the development of the following: motor skills, perceptual abilities, language, acquisition of mathematical concepts and social adaptability. Seven pupils from a primary school were then selected as experimental subjects and a six-month individual music therapy programme was presented to each after establishing their individual problems. This information was derived from class teachers' reports, pupils' scores in the various school subjects and from the results of standardized scholastic and perceptual tests. The progress of each subject was discussed per se and illustrated by means of tables explaining the various data. During the period of presentation due attention was paid to: Fine muscle co-ordination, eye-hand co-ordination, left-right co-ordination, exercises in reading, visual and auditory discrimination and memory, spacial awareness, succession of sounds, foreground-background differentiation, number skills, spelling, sustained attention and perseverance, musical development and improvement of pupils' self-image. When the programme had been fully presented, the battery of tests was repeated and the class teachers were once more consulted to determine the extent of the progress. These data were then also included in the tables previously mentioned. The following conclusions could be drawn from the results of the individual music therapy programme that had been presented to the seven pupils: All the pupils concerned had made progress; subjects in which there had been significant improvement were reading, mathematics, spelling and hand-writing, with notable increase in writing speed; the experimental subjects showed improved ability to concentrate and their self-image had also improved. One can therefore arrive at the conclusion that music therapy can be successfully used with groups or individuals to help them overcome their learning problems.