and I'm thrilled to be speaking with you today

about my topic, which is utilizing music therapy

to teach language skills for students, who are Deaf

or hard of hearing. I'd like to start with telling you

a little bit about myself. I was previously

the music therapist and music educator at the Colorado

School for the Deaf and the Blind. I worked for 10 years

with the School for the Deaf preschool through eighth

grade programs. I currently work for the Center for

Hearing and Communication in Broward County, Florida,

and now my focus is high school students.

I would like to briefly share with you

what music therapy is. Music therapy is a field

that requires a degree. It requires a Board Certification

and an internship. I like to define music therapy

as "the use of music for non-musical goals."

You can find music therapists in many types of settings.

You can find them in clinical settings, in hospitals,

in hospice services. You can also find them

in educational settings. A lot of times school districts

hire music therapists in special education settings.

Research has indicated that music can aid

in memory/attention. It provides motivation and

reinforcement, and helps establish

a positive learning environment.

Oftentimes, when I talk about Deafness and music,

I sometimes get a quizzical response.

One could hypothesize, that students who are Deaf or

hard of hearing: Why would they be good at music and

why would they enjoy music? I always, when I get that

kind of response, I like to highlight Gardner's Theory

of Multiple Intelligences, which states that all

of our brains are wired certain ways, in different ways,

and all of us have gifts.

My theory and Gardner's theory is that, just because

someone's hearing mechanism doesn't work like

the typical hearing population, it doesn't mean

that their brain is still not wired and gifted for music.

In my studies and in my experience at the School for the

Deaf and the Blind, I have known profoundly Deaf

individuals, who are rooted in the Deaf community,

but still enjoy any type of feedback they get from music.

They have speaker systems at their house,

they use earbuds, and even though what they're

experiencing is vibrational, they still get reinforced and

motivated by the rhythms of the vibrational feedback.

May I add, just like the hearing population there are

some hearing people, who don't enjoy music.

Music is not their thing, they don't enroll in any classes

in music. They are just not connected to music.

I think similarly to the Deaf community, there are some

Deaf members, who don't identify with music at all.

Research has indicated strengths and preferences

for children, who are Deaf or hard of hearing.

Let me give you a few seconds to read these bullets.

It states that music should be appropriately

amplified. It is important for a teacher or parent to

realize, that for a student who is Deaf or hard of hearing,

a Fisher Price boombox is not going to do justice

to the music that they are going to hear.

You want to make sure the sound equipment

is legit, and that it's high quality.

Children, who are Deaf or hard of hearing, require more

exposure, which makes sense, because maybe their

musical experiences aren't as vast as someone,

who had a lot of experiences previously.

Rhythmic tendencies tend to be stronger than

pitch-related abilities. It's really interesting

in a lot of the research, the students, who are Deaf or

hard of hearing, do just as well as the hearing subjects,

when it comes to rhythmic testing.

So rhythmic tends to be very salient

for the Deaf population.

Finally, sustaining instruments give more

aural feedback, are more reinforcing than percussive

instruments. This is an interesting finding, because

a lot of times in the Deaf community, you'll see big bass

drums at football games and at pep rallies.

While that instrument is very reinforcing for the Deaf

community, the research found that low-frequency

instruments like a trombone, that sustains a low pitch,

tends to be more be reinforcing

and gives more feedback. Another example is

a bass guitar, when you strum the string

or when you pluck the string,

the sound going through the amplifier is reinforcing.

It's important here that I mention, that preference is

very important. As you know in the Deaf or

hard of hearing population, that lot of times

the hearing varies. There's high frequency loss,

low frequency loss. So it is important to match

preferences with the hearing loss. For example,

the soprano recorder, which is a small high-pitched

instrument, a lot my Deaf students didn't like that

instrument, because it wasn't low pitched.

They would actually detested that instrument.

But occasionally, I have one or two students,

who would just fall love with the soprano recorder.

So you really do you have to pay attention

to preferences.

I'll give you a second to read the slide.

Is music a part Deaf culture?

I think, if I would ask a member of the Deaf community,

they would probably say, "No," that it is not part of

Deaf culture, and that it is more part of hearing culture.

I have in working with the Deaf community,

I have found big examples of ways that music

is utilized in the Deaf culture. If you remember,

for example, the creation, performance, significance,

and even the definition of music varies according

to culture and social context. Music in America

is very different than, let's say, music in tribal Africa.

I would like to make the same comparison that music

in mainstream hearing culture, might be different

than music that's found and created

by the Deaf community. One example, I love to use is

the Gallaudet Fight Song. The song has strong rhythmic

examples inside of it. It has a calm response

type of feel, and it is used by the Deaf

and passed from generation to generation,

much like a folk song is passed down

from generation to generation in the hearing culture.

Another example of music in the Deaf culture

is D-PAN, Deaf Performing Arts Network, d-pan.com

is a website, where Deaf people can perform.

There's a performer there named Sean Forbes,

who actually creates raps and

incorporates ASL sign into his raps.

My last example of music in Deaf culture is Rathskellar,

which is a Deaf performing arts group that travels

around United States performing rhythmic chants,

performing dance, and performing all kinds

of instruments or actually it's more

geared towards movement in sign.

I'll give you second to read this slide.

For my graduate studies, I looked at the use of music

to teach vocabulary. I chose 24 target words, and

I really focused on children age three and four years old.

I had a hearing sample and a group of students

who were Deaf or hard of hearing.

I targeted words in six different categories to teach

them. I made sure before I started the testing

that they were unaware of the vocabulary,

that I was introducing.

In this project, I had four conditions or four situations

that I taught in. One was, I paired music with visual

aids and sign language. So I used song to teach

vocabulary. In my second condition, I used rhythmic

chant paired with visual aids and sign language.

My third condition, I just used conversation paired

with visual aids and sign language. Finally, my fourth

condition was a control condition,

which I didn't teach words at all in the session.

I found that the preschoolers, who are Deaf or

hard of hearing made the most gains in the rhythmic

condition, that the rhythmic chant helped aid teach

vocabulary most out of the melodic conversation

and the control group.

I will give you a second to read the slide.

This finding corroborates with previous research

that states, "Rhythm is very salient for people

with hearing loss," and the results could implicate

that rhythmic chant could be used in preschool

classrooms. In music classrooms, it may be beneficial

to use rhythmic chant to teach vocabulary.

In this next clip that I'm going to show.

It's an example of how I use rhythmic chant to teach

vocabulary. This is a chant that actually teaches

opposites. I'm going to show the clip for you now.

"To my rap, tell me the opposite, when I snap.

Listen, I say, 'Yes,' you say, 'No.'

I say, 'Fast,' you say, 'Slow.'

I say, 'Hot,' you say, 'Cold.'

I say, 'Young,' you say, 'Old.'

I say, 'Wet,' you say, 'Dry.'

I say, 'Hello,' you say, 'Bye-bye.' "

"Good job!"

"Who wants a turn? Dionte!"

"Listen, listen to my rap,

tell me the opposite, when I snap.

I say, 'Yes,' you say, 'No,' 'No.'

I say, 'Fast,' you say, 'Cold,' 'Slow.'

I say, 'Hot,' you say, 'Cold.'

I say, 'Young,' you say, 'Old.'

I say, 'Wet,' you say, 'Dry.'

I say, 'Hello,' you say, 'Bye-bye.'

Bye, Dionte."

"Yeah! Good job!"

Music is connected to language and may be

a reinforcing way to teach and reinforce standards.

For example, a common kindergarten English standard

is: Remember key details from a story.

A lot of times songs are stories, and we call them

story songs. A lot of times folk songs embed stories

in them. Parents and teachers can help students,

who are Deaf or hard of hearing, with temporal language

by asking them, "What happens at the beginning

of this song, what happens in the middle,

and what happens at the end?" A lot of songs have

a sequence, and the music is a great memory aid.

Plus, it gives students an opportunity to act out songs,

so that they can not only have an auditory aid

with the music, but a kinesthetic aid with acting it out.

An example, that I like to use in my kindergarten

classes is a song called "Grizzly Bear."

I'm going to sing it for you right now.

"A grizzly bear, a grizzly bear is sleeping in a cave.

Please be very quiet, very, very quiet.

If you wake him, if you shake him, he gets very mad."

In a kindergarten setting, after I taught the song

to the students, I would ask questions like,

"Who is in the cave? What is the bear doing?

When does the bear get mad? Where is the bear?

Why should you not shake the bear or wake him?"

These are great examples tied to that kindergarten

standard, and it's a lot of fun for the students.

Song books are another avenue, where music is tied

to literacy. A lot of the story songs, that I talk to you

about have been made into beautiful books with visual

aids, and the song serves as an auditory aid,

memory cue for the students, who are reading the book.

So just a reminder about story songs that are illustrated.

Moving on to an older grade, fourth grade English

standard, and a common standard is: Identify and

use common types of figures of speech.

I'll give you a second to read the slide.

Research has indicated that students, who are Deaf or

hard of hearing have less use of imaginative language,

have difficulty understanding figurative or symbolic

language, and because of this are delayed

in other subjects. Well, music and song lyrics are rich

in figurative language. Every popular song imaginable

has some sort of figurative language

incorporated into it.

Music has similes, metaphors. Tons of songs

use idioms and all different kinds imagery.

Sometimes, songs are good examples for language.

Other times, there're songs with lyrics that are

not good examples of the English language.

Again, that is a good non-example to point out