Exploring & LEarning with Music

What if I told you there was a way to work on your child’s language and speech development, social skills, self-control, and basic math skills – all while having fun?

Wouldn’t you be interested?
 
Believe it or not, there is something that does all these things and more – Music. 
 
Music has many benefits to a child’s development as it provides numerous types of positive stimulation to a child’s brain and helps them learn about speech, self-control, social awareness, and basic math skills. 
 
There are a lot of simple ways we can incorporate music into our child’s daily life to help with their growth and development. Here are some ideas:

• Listen to different types of music - Listening to different music genres provides our children with opportunities to listen and learn while helping their brain grow and develop. They can learn about concepts in music that apply to their lives including things such as fast and slow, and loud and soft.

 

• Give your child opportunities to dance - This can help with the development of their coordination and awareness of where their body is in relation to others. This further helps children understand the concept of “personal space.”

 

• Give your child opportunities to make music - No fancy instruments needed here – clap hands, stomp feet, bang pots and pans, or singing are all great ways that children can make music without any special items. You can use these activities as opportunities to teach your children about counting and holding a beat.

 

• Encourage your child to sing - This helps both speech and language development. We are not concerned if they are singing with the correct pitch or tempo yet, or even if they are even using the right words. We want our children to have fun when engaging with music as well as learn to express themselves to music. Learning to sing and matching speech along with a tempo as well as learning vocal patterns will help a child with their language development.

 

• Look for music groups in your area - There are specific music classes geared towards toddlers, or you can always make a music group with some of your friends. By letting children engage in music in a group setting, not only are they getting the benefits of music (language and speech development, self-control, and basic math skills) they will also learn social skills such as sharing, taking turns, listening to others, following directions, and playing with others.

I hope you have Fun Exploring and Learning with Music this week. As always, please feel free to email me at blog@goflowoccupationaltherapy.com if you have any additional questions.

See you soon!
Michael Jankowski, MS, OTR/L