Music Therapy Today - World Federation of Music Therapy

Pecoraro Esperson, P. (2006) The pleasure of being “differently able”: Integration through music therapy in primary
schools. Music Therapy Today (Online) Vol.VII (2) 413-429. available at http://musictherapyworld.net
conducted, which helped with the structuring of the “backgrounds of
integration”.
Case studies
The specific experience refers to my work carried out in a primary school
in the outskirts of Rome with children aged between 6-8 years. The
classes involve had two children with grave psychomotor disabilities,
which I will call Leo and Theo, who were both unable to communicate
verbally and had just began to communicate with gestures spontaneously
(Leo had 10 lexical gestures whereas Theo had one gesture). The obser-
vation of the work carried out has been done following the musical thera-
peutic model of evaluation of E. H. Boxill.
The activity of group music therapy for integration was organized in the
following way: meetings held twice a week lasting 50 minutes; no more
than four “normal” children from either Leo’ s (7/8 year-olds) or Theo’ s
(6/7 year-olds) plus the special needs teacher. Theo’ s teacher had never
attended music therapy sessions. Her task was to try as much as possible
to comply with the progress of the work with no verbal interventions,
whereas I observed and complied with eventual “interferences” tied to
the educational project set to cater for Theo’s specific needs, of whom his
teacher was directly responsible. We had both been working together for
the first time. The filming was carried out by an apprentice in music ther-
apy, of the triennial course of Music Therapy of Rome, organized by the
Cultural Association FO.RI.FO. legally recognized by the Ministry of
Public Education. The apprentice had only been employed in April, since
we deemed necessary to begin our work in a climate of extreme tranquil-
lity due to the gravity of the cases and the facility with which the group
Case studies 419