23.7. 1993 Vitoria-Gasteiz / Spain - World Federation of Music Therapy

No le neguemos al discapacitado auditivo el don de la
palabra; brindémosle la oportunidad de conocer el
código que maneja la mayor parte de la gente.
"Abramos nuestra mente a la posibilidad de oralización
del niño sordo ya que el aprendizaje abrira sus oidos".
M U S I C - T H E R A P E U T I C T R E A T M E N T O N A
S E L F - I N J U R I O U S S U B J E C T W I T H A
D I A G N O S I S O F G E N E R A L D I S T U R B A N C E O F
D E V E L O P M E N T .
E NRICO BRANCA
THE SITUATION BEFORE THE TREATMENT
The first time I saw Giuseppe was on february 1990; he
was sixteen years old, with black eyes and black hair.
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He had a normal physical development, I was struck by
the stif fness of his body and especially of his arms: he
was sitting in a yoga position, his forearms were rested
on his legs and he was continuously swinging, He had
been wearing two pipes of stiff plastic on his arms for
about three years: the institute he came from had
decided to make use of these pipes in order to stop his
slapping (however the institute came to this decision
with his parents's agreement). As a matter of fact the
peculiarity of this case is selfinjuring: when the subiect is
left free, he begins slapping himself violently and
continuously.
But the pipes were not a good solution: the doctors
agreed that G. was loosing the articulation of his arms;
so the sanitary director of the institute decided to
remove the pipes, The institute organized day and night
shifts for all the operators in order to help G. to control
his aggressiveness. During this period I saw G. for
three meeting of music-therapy.