An Investigation into Short-Term Music Therapy with Mothers and Young Children

Abstract

This paper describes an outcome investigation into two clinical groups of mothers and young children receiving short-term music therapy. The first group was a closed group of mothers and toddlers receiving six-weekly music therapy sessions. The second group was an ongoing group of parents and babies receiving one music therapy session followed by a discussion of videotaped excerpts of this music therapy session a week later. As a point of comparison, a group of children and parents attending a local nursery school receiving six-weekly music sessions run by a music therapist was also investigated. Video analyses, audio analyses and parent's questionnaires were used to measure results. Comparing information collated from the questionnaires to results of the video analyses revealed that parents attending the clinical group viewed their children's behaviours in a less positive light than control group parents.

The article is written from the music therapist's viewpoint. This group music therapy work is described and reflected upon in a more qualitative way in a previous article entitled ‘“Mummy can play too…” Short-term music therapy with mothers and young children’ published two years ago in the BJMT.