[humanser] Assessments with children with disabilities

[Justin Williams]

I certainly interested in how you do that, please keep me posted.  Your
opportunity sounds great.  
Justin

-----Original Message-----
From: HumanSer [mailto:humanser-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Kaiti
Shelton via HumanSer
Sent: Sunday, September 10, 2017 10:30 AM
To: humanser at nfbnet.org
Cc: Kaiti Shelton <crazy4clarinet104 at gmail.com>
Subject: [humanser] Assessments with children with disabilities

Hi all,

I'm 2 weeks into my clinical music therapy internship now, and I'm loving it
so far.  I've met most of my adult clients and all of the students I will be
working with, and have several group sessions as well as individuals at 4
local schools.

In my group sessions, I will be using an assessment tool called the Music
Therapy Social Skills Assessment, or the MTSSA. It is specifically designed
to assess social skill development in group settings for children with
neurodevelopmental disorders.  As the vast majority of the children in my
groups have Autism, most of our goals are either social or
communication-based.  I have yet to see this assessment tool myself, but my
supervisor has explained that different elements such as reciprocal behavior
and level of engagement are rated on a scale from 1 to 8, with 8 being the
most engaged or socially developed.  The tool also takes stock of the type
of play each child is engaging in, such as solitary, parallel, onlooker,
etc.  I know my work is different, but I was curious if anyone else working
with children might need to gather similar data.  Groups of children this
young in this population are new for me, so I am trying to explore ways I
can accurately gauge things like type of play and engagement independently
before I have to get started actually documenting.  My supervisor is
wonderful and he is going to be guiding me through the assessment process in
the first half of the internship before I assess in January and February on
my own, but if I could get feedback from another blind person to aid in my
learning and to come up with some possible adaptations for myself it would
be useful.  Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

--
Kaiti Shelton

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