We are so excited to announce a brand-new addition to our Music Therapy Resource Room blog! As you may have already heard, KidLinks and SMU began a wonderful collaboration together. Because of the wonderful work KidLinks does, we were able to incorporate a music therapist at the SMU music therapy clinic, thus kicking off the very first J.W. Brown Music Therapist in Residence at SMU. This is such an exciting venture for both KidLinks and SMU. One specifically exciting aspect is this position will serve as an educational outlet for the music therapy students at SMU. As a result, we thought it would be great to include their perspective on our blog! We proposed that the students could write an original song that could be used in sessions with the KidLinks’ client demographic. Boy did the students deliver! We are so excited to publish one of those submissions this month, written by music therapy student Meg Thornton. We hope to keep doing this in the future and hope that it adds another perspective to your session setlist. Below is the outline of the intervention, visual aid, lead sheet, and audio of the song. We hope you enjoy!

Sara Chigani, MA, MT-BC

“My Favorite Holiday”

Song and Intervention Written By: Margaret (Meg) Thornton, MT Student

Southern Methodist University

Dallas, TX

Description

This is an original composition about favorite holidays. This song includes fill in the

blanks, so the clients can talk about their favorite holiday and their favorite parts about

that holiday. This gives the clients an opportunity for expression and individualization.

Prompting the client to choose a holiday, and four activities or characteristics of that

holiday strengthens cognitive and decision-making skills.

Goals

Self-expression, strengthen cognitive skills, promote decision making

Adaptations

This intervention may be used with older clients as well, but goals will be different. If

using this for an older population, some sample goals are reality orientation,

strengthening cognitive skills, and increasing attention.