Proceedings, Oxford, UK (2002) - World Federation of Music Therapy

instead toward the camera. My playing the drum seemed to help him
refocus his attention so that our little interactive game could go on. His
facial expression here seemed to communicate enjoyment.
The goals for treatment at this point in time were to develop interactive
competencies, in this case the abilities to focus and maintain attention, to
explore the environment, to experience and develop the ability to
influence events within the therapy setting.
Strategies for therapy
Orff Music Therapy uses responsive interaction as the basis for
therapeutic procedures. Responsive interaction resembles the natural
interaction between parents and their very young child. The child sends
out signals, the adult interprets these and responds to them. These
behaviors and stimuli cause changes in the child’s behaviors and
abilities, which cause adaptations of the adult’s behavior (Sarimski,
1993; Papousek, 1994; Durkin, 1995). In therapy, the therapist changes
her way of playing with, communicating with or stimulating the child to
match the child’s abilities at his present level of development.
Lukas’ spontaneous play behavior, knocking on objects with his hand or
another object and throwing things, was used as the basis from which
interactive games using music or musical elements were developed.
Additionally, well known children’s songs and situation songs
improvised to support the course of play were used. During the first four
sessions we continued to observe a short attention span, but musical
sounds usually caught his attention and enabled us to continue the
activity he had just left. He showed great difficulties in following the
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