15 - Music Therapy for Rehab

In this clip, Sarah Thompson, MM, MT-BC, CBIS is working with a man who has apraxia and aphasia. During conversation, he struggles to answer questions and initiate speech. Sarah forms the “th” sound with her mouth, which cues him on how to shape his mouth to say the word “therapy” during their conversation. He uses facial expressions, tone of voice and gestures to try to communicate. He has increased fluency when singing a familiar song but still benefits from visual cues from the therapist in order to articulate the sounds correctly. The therapist chose one of the few songs that this individual knows all the lyrics to and she emphasizes the rhythm of the song to assist with articulation. She minimizes her own singing to allow this individual to hear himself sing the words in the songs. She also provides visual cues as needed throughout the song. The focus of this intervention is to use the music to stimulate the correct articulation of words. In this clip, the therapist is not concerned with the individual’s vocal pitch, because the goal is correctly singing or speaking the words.