Local non-profit is changing lives with music therapy

By Narda Sigala

 Life Changing Therapy

When a young man, John Smith, whose real name is concealed for safety and privacy, is diagnosed with Autism, and struggles with motor and sensory skills. During the pandemic, he begins to attend Perfect Harmony Health, and the benefits of music therapy begin to really shine through his progress. With beginning music therapy, Smith hoped to be able to accomplish many goals, amongst those goals being able to articulate the sounds of consonants in speech, particularly words that carry the “L” sound.

After many years of speech therapy, it wasn’t until Smith began working with Allison Lockhart, assistant director and neurological music therapist at Perfect Harmony Health in Roswell, Georgia. She decided that to work towards that goal, they would begin with strengthening the tongue muscle that is used in many consonants. Allison worked with him on both strengthening and stretching the tongue in all directions with many exercises.

“We used cues by music, utilizing things like wind instruments to strengthen his lip muscles and tongue muscles,” says Lockhart, MM, LPMT, MT-BC, NMT-F. “We just started working on that and within a few months, he started articulating the L consonant for the first time in his life and now he’s doing that on all of his words.”

The acronyms that follow after the name of the licensed therapists are all different certifications that they have achieved since completing their educations and being in the field. Often times this could also be specifications to indicate what level and field of training all of the therapists have.

This small change of tongue exercise in his daily routine, allowed for him to achieve  something that so many people take for granted when it comes to their motor and speech skills is a lifetime achievement that changes the way people live. For Smith, achieving this lifelong goal improved his day-to-day routine because he was now able to pronounce “Alexa,” the name of a virtual assistant that uses technology to help assist and control different aspects of his home.

“Now he is transferring it to Alexa at home. He uses her to control everything and the TV. Before, he couldn’t get her to respond, because it didn’t sound like Alexa, because of the L in it,” Lockhart says. “Now he hears it and can control things in his environment.”

Smith exemplifies the benefits of music therapy and the importance of this work. According to the Journal of Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews, this type of therapy uses music and works with its ability to affect cognitive, psychosocial, behavioral, and motor skills in an individual. Perfect Harmony Health specializes in working to help individuals with neurological disorders achieve and work towards independent goals.

A Better Quality of Life

Independent goals for clients can look like anything, the goals could range from speech skills to regulations of their body and mind. When it comes to neurological diagnosis, at times people can struggle with speech, sensory or motor skills.

“It’s hard to have a disability and not be able to speak your mind when you need to or be able to regulate your system,” says McKensie Taylor, a Neurologic Music Therapist LPMT, MT-BC and Fellow (NMT-F), IWBMC-CE at Perfect Harmony Health. “So, if you can use something enjoyable, like music to help you get through that and figure out a way to do that, then it’s kind of combining a passion with quality of life.”

Like many organizations, they have a mission. The mission at Perfect Harmony Health is to first and foremost presume competency and the belief that innovative healthcare should be accessible to all.

“We just treat our clients as if they were regular people, we presume competence in making sure that we’re treating them like you would anybody else,” says Taylor. “Because of their disability, we don’t look down on them like babies, we treat them appropriately based on their age and on the way that they should be treated.”

Music therapy should be more available because of the life-changing developments that it creates for many people. Taylor works with many clients on a day-to-day basis at Perfect Harmony Health in Roswell, Georgia.

Musically Skilled and Music Skills

One client in particular exemplifies the importance of accessibility to music therapy throughout his time working with her. Stewart Johnson, whose real name is concealed for privacy and security reasons, was diagnosed with Apraxia at a young age and has since been working on his speech skills. Apraxia is the loss of skilled movements such as speech due to other diagnoses, often making it more difficult to communicate and evade loop patterns caused in the brain.

Johnson began working with Taylor on his speech skills to prevent from getting stuck in constant loops surrounding word sounds that would throw him off a sentence and create a long stutter. He uses a metronome and piano notes to reignite signals in his brain and to keep him on track with sentences and whatever he is wanting to communicate.

“He had a very hard time getting out his words in a quick manner, when he first started coming, way back when, he was having a hard time providing multiple word sentences and phrases,” says Taylor. “Now he is at the rate where he can do that, in our sessions we use music to help with the arousal of his sensory system, which then connects that sensory oral portion of that oral motor that way he can speak at a faster rate, just like anybody else and he can communicate better and more easily.”

 

Awareness for All

Many music therapists share the goal to create awareness, so that kids all over are able to receive this level of health care that has seen so many developments within different types of people. Along with gaining awareness for this innovative therapy, there is also a goal to raise accessibility. Music therapy has so many benefits to everybody and should be integrated in more facilities that allows its members to reap from these benefits. 

“I think music will help everybody,” says Professor Amber Weldon-Stephens EdS, LPMT, MT-BC. “It’s the use of music to learn a skill, to decrease a behavior, to enhance your life, to fill in the blank, it can go in so many ways.”

Before this rise in the accessibility of music therapy, Clayton County Schools were the only school district in Georgia to offer it in 1990. Since then, Professor Weldon-Stephens has been a huge part of the expansion of pushing more schools to offer music therapy to students. Within the next few years, music therapists and experts hope to see expansion to more schools across the state of Georgia.

In a new journal by Musical Therapy Perspective, many theorists suggest that school arts may be a new way to enact inclusive practices to address the incredibly diverse needs of students in schools. This new approach will allow the introduction of more music therapy programs into schools and offers new ideas for districts to help with funding.

“Music Therapy is the life span; it’s cradle to the grave. It’s palliative care, it’s hospice care, it’s adult rehab, it’s wellness, because we all use music therapeutically in one way,” says Weldon-Stephens. “For Music therapists it is all about that relationship with a client or group of kids and figuring out what they need and then using music prescriptively.”

Music therapy and its benefits are exemplified through all of the clients and people that go through music therapy. Whether it is through their achievement of goals or development of skills, music therapy allows their quality of life to improve and change their lives for the better.