[humanser] Client handwriting, accessibility, and confidentiality

[Quinto Sanchez]

 hi Kaiti,

well since those lyrics are hand written I don't think a OCR scanning 
software such as Kurzwell will be able to convert the client's hand writing 
into text. In your informed consent, that the individual or their guardian 
had to sign should of disclosed that you are a therapist in training and 
will be working with a supervisor or sharing with the professor or other 
therapist in training. If they agreed to receive therapeutic services from 
you then I think you are able to share with either the professor or your 
classmates ethicly. IN the future, I have seen that sighted therapist 
include a statement in their informed consent indicating that while their 
information is confidential essential staff and third party insurances may 
have access to their records. In our case essential staff could potentially 
read us the lyrics. In addition, you might ask a client to type out the 
lyrics and that way you can scan it into Kurzwell. HTH

--------------------------------------------------
From: "Kaiti Shelton via humanser" <humanser at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Friday, October 09, 2015 2:17 PM
To: <humanser at nfbnet.org>
Cc: "Kaiti Shelton" <crazy4clarinet104 at gmail.com>
Subject: [humanser] Client handwriting, accessibility, and confidentiality

> Hi all,
>
> I was presented with a unique challenge that I have not had to
> overcome before in practicum this week.  I'd be interested in hearing
> your thoughts or solutions you have used successfully in similar
> situations.
>
> Here's the scenario; I'm in my music therapy practicum, working with a
> young man who has Down Syndrome on an individual basis.  This client
> and I have formed a very successful therapeutic relationship over the
> past few weeks.  The theoretical model I'm using with him places a
> priority on reciprocity and working for the client to get what they
> feel they need out of the music therapy treatment.  (Music-centered,
> client-centered, and resource-oriented if anyone is interested in the
> models).  On Monday the client presented me with a spiral notebook in
> which he had written original song lyrics.  He wanted to take the time
> in our session to shape them musically, but it was difficult for me
> because I did not have access to his handwritten lyrics.  In the
> following session my supervisor and I asked for his permission to copy
> the lyrics, and another professor was able to do so while I continued
> with the session so he could take his notebook home with him.
>
> Now I have PDF files of his song lyrics, but I'm wondering how to
> ethically convert them to a usable format (they're image PDFs) so I
> can read his words and become familiar with them before our next
> session on Wednesday.  I'm not sure if I can take them to disability
> services or use robo braille because that isn't an aspect of
> confidentiality that was discussed in general classes.  I don't know
> if I can make sure that in either case all coppies of the files would
> be destroyed.  My professor suggested that I find another music
> therapy student in my class to read the lyrics to me as I type them
> out.  We're technically not supposed to even share much information
> between teams, but he said we could let it go since I have no one else
> on my team this semester and need to get the information somehow, plus
> those other students would be bound by confidentiality.
>
> However, I would like to know how to solve this problem myself if it
> ever comes up professionally for me, as I'm sure it will  I also don't
> want to use a reader if I don't have to like a lot of students my age,
> so any suggestions for independently gaining access to these lyrics
> would be appreciated.
>
> Thanks,
>
> -- 
> Kaiti Shelton
> University of Dayton-Music Therapy
> President, Ohio Association of Blind Students 2013-Present
> Secretary, The National Federation of the Blind Performing Arts
> Division 2015-2016
>
> "You can live the life you want; blindness is not what holds you back!"
>
> _______________________________________________
> humanser mailing list
> humanser at nfbnet.org
> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/humanser_nfbnet.org
> To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for 
> humanser:
> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/options/humanser_nfbnet.org/sanchezq%40prodigy.net