Therapy in Music for Handicapped Children
- Author:
Paul Nordoff
and Clive Robbins Gollancz, ?1.80
Music therapists and teachers will welcome this revised account of the work of Nordoff and Robbinst At first sight it might seem to be just a rearrangement of the material of their earlier (1965) book Investigations and Experiences but closer attention reveals a considerable development in the thinking of these highly respected workers.
The descriptions of specific sessions are concise and lively and have achieved a good balance of objectivity (in assessment and evaluation) and what must be an intuitive approach. Chapter 4?’Categories of Response*?is particularly useful for musicians?indeed for any therapists working in this field. Although it is important to adopt a global approach, it is necessary for a therapist to recognise specific areas of response so as to be able to make an assessment, recall his or her knowledge and then effect a ‘treatment’.
Those who have seen Nordoff and Robbins at work will agree that no book can really highlight the personality factor sufficiently. What is clear is their concern for handicapped children as people. The therapist, they say, ‘must believe in the intrinsic importance of each life with which he is working. He must respect the inward experiences of that life and feel reverence and enthusiasm for the freshness of emotional experience that his work can bring to birth in each child’.
The publication of this book is timely?now that the needs of mentally handicapped children are of interest to educationists. It is possible that music, with the other arts, can have its greatest benefit to these children for the sorts of reasons Dr. Nordoff and Clive Robbins set out. David Ward
Disclaimer
The historical material in this project falls into one of three categories for clearances and permissions:
Material currently under copyright, made available with a Creative Commons license chosen by the publisher.
Material that is in the public domain
Material identified by the Welcome Trust as an Orphan Work, made available with a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
While we are in the process of adding metadata to the articles, please check the article at its original source for specific copyrights.