Music Therapy

music therapy
music therapy
music therapy literacy

Work With Me

The starting point for working with me is a free phone consultation. I offer both one-on-one and group sessions depending on the needs of the client. At our initial meeting, I will answer all your questions and get some basic information from you about your child or loved one. I want to learn about their strengths, needs, and challenges.

If you choose to contract with me for music therapy services, we will schedule a time for weekly sessions. Following several assessment sessions, an individualized treatment plan is written to target specific non-musical goals under the domains of communication, motor, cognitive and social.

My clinic space is located in Oshkosh, Wisconsin at 1616 Georgia St. — Door C and is where I see all one-on-one clients. Group sessions take place at a different location.

Please email me if you have any questions or would like to set up a consultation.

 

About Music Therapy

Music therapy has been an established health profession since 1950 and is now receiving mainstream acceptance due to advances in brain research and increased attention in the media. The most difficult part of my career is concisely defining music therapy. Through music based strategies, I treat the whole person — behavioral, social, communication, physical, sensory-motor and cognitive — with clear boundaries about what I am not trained to do. Collaborating with other therapists, teachers and parents is a highly effective way to help my clients achieve their goals.

 

There are several “official” definitions of music therapy. My favorite is a relatively new definition prepared by the World Federation of Music Therapy:
“Music therapy is the professional use of music and its elements as an intervention in medical, educational, and everyday environments with individuals, groups, families, or communities who seek to optimize their quality of life and improve their physical, social, communicative, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual health and wellbeing. Research, practice, education, and clinical training in music therapy are based on professional standards according to cultural, social, and political contexts.” 

 

You can also learn more about music therapy by visiting the American Music Therapy Association.

 

Goal Areas

A specialty treatment area of mine is to improve communication skills through a literacy based approach. By assessing and targeting the development of phonological awareness, a strong foundation for both literacy and spoken communication can be developed for those who are struggling.

Additionally, the following are some sample goal areas that can be addressed in music therapy:

  • Improve sensorimotor integration
  • Improve ability to sustain attention
  • Develop ability to take turns
  • Improve self regulation
  • Develop ability to cross midline
  • Improve fine motor skills
  • Develop attention skills and impulse control
  • Improve ability to transition between tasks
  • Improve auditory discrimination
  • Develop working memory
  • Increase sentence length
  • Improve handwriting skills

 

"Music therapy is very beneficial. My son would actually sit for periods of time and pay attention. He would engage in the activities and interact with Kathy!"

"Kathy does an excellent job of evaluating skills, setting a plan and documenting achievement of the plan. Emily was evaluated every 6 months under Kathy's care and I looked forward to reading each report. Due to my work schedule, I was not able to observe Emily's therapy sessions often so the report gave me insight into what new skills she was gaining."

“I just wanted to say thank you for everything you’ve done to help our son. You have been a HUGE impact in his life and progress and I just want you to know that we all really appreciate what you’ve done for him.

“We just want to say thank you again so much for everything that you have done for Maria and for us.  We really appreciated everything you have done and feel very fortunate to have found you.  We are such a wonderful teacher and feel blessed to know you.” 

"My child has blossomed into a little girl who can effectively communicate her needs and can be understood approximately 80% of the time. As a family, we explored many methods of communication  from ASL to ACC as we were unsure how and if Emily would develop strong enough verbal skills for it to be her primary vehicle of communication. To our absolute delight we believe it was music therapy that aided the relatively quick development of Emily's verbal skills."

"Joseph has been improving in his communications leaps and bounds when using music therapy services. He has gone from saying disjointed words to speaking in longer phrases and sentences."

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