Using a Music Therapy Collaborative Consultative Approach - World ...

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the song and play activity, although a minimum of ongoing mediation and encouragement by
the children’s teachers was necessary. The peer-mediated intervention resulted in greater
positive peer interactions compared to baseline and the adaptation of the playground, but was
less effective than the teacher-mediated intervention, even though peers’ accuracy in
implementing the intervention was fairly high. Both the teacher-mediated and peer-mediated
song intervention enhanced the target children’s play and engagement on the playground.
However, for this study, ongoing music therapy collaborative consultation was necessary. In
addition to these overarching findings, a series of observations, no less important to the
effectiveness of this inquiry, were noteworthy. These findings are enumerated in the
following passages, broken down by child subject.
Eric. The results of the study indicate that Eric’s positive peer interactions on the
playground were modest (M=5.9%), whereas his play and engagement with toys and
materials was rather high (M=52.7%). With the adaptation of the playground, positive peer
interaction initially increased (M=16.7), while his play and engagement remained at the same
level as in the previous condition (M=52.8). In playground observations, novelty of the
Music Hut captured most children’s attention and motivated them to explore and play the
instruments. And because Eric was consistently curious and interested in his peers’
playground activities, he followed his classmates to the Music Hut where positive
interactions occurred while playing the instruments. When over time a smaller number of
children played in the Music Hut, Eric returned to his previously preferred solely playground
activities (e.g., riding a tricycle). The introduction of the song intervention by Eric’s
classroom teacher produced a significant increase in positive peer interactions (M=48.8%).