To Suzanne Oliver, Founder & Executive Director of NMTSA
Over four years ago, after our son was determined to be eligible for ALTCS and DDD, I quickly placed our little man on a wait list for your clinic (which was my top choice for music therapy because of your focus on NMT). After doing so, I called around to the other providers of music therapy services for the metro area listed in the eligibility materials I was given, only to find that many of them had already gone to models preferencing private pay clients and restricting or eliminating DDD recipients from consideration altogether because the reimbursement rates were too low to adequately cover the cost of providing care. I was feeling lottery-winner levels of grateful to receive an e-mail that your team had an opening for Tony just a couple short months later.
Suzanne, thank you for so many years of tireless dedication to fundraising and pursing every avenue available to continue providing services to families in the Arizona DDD community since the 2010 rate reductions. Many would never have been able to afford this type of therapy service otherwise, and would have gone deeper in debt or gone entirely without.
Thank you for taking time out of your incredibly busy schedule to participate in therapy sessions with Tony when a bit of extra guidance or trouble-shooting was needed to help move him forward. I am deeply grateful that you took time early on to share your observations with me about Tony and what you felt like were some of his strengths that we could build upon. Thank you for providing occasional parent training so that our families could understand what was being done and better implement NMT activities at home. You have a heart and a passion for helping in this community that has blessed many families, and I would like to express the profound gratitude of our family for what you have done.
Some Reading To Consider
Family, friends, and early readers of our blog may recall that Emily did a guest post over a year ago (while she was still Tony’s NMT therapist at NMTSA) explaining a little bit about how Neurologic Music Therapy was being used with Tony. Like every other aspect of what is going on with our son, she certainly wasn’t able to touch on everything in one post. For example, NMT techniques were being used at that time to help Tony overcome frequent falls while walking in situations with a lot of visual or auditory stimuli. He would become so overwhelmed it was like his brain just couldn’t hold onto the signal to continue walking, and he’d go straight to the ground (sometimes every few feet in crowded and noisy public settings). Currently, this is a problem he no longer has (thanks to NMT), and those few instances he goes on the ground now are usually quite deliberate.
Because NMT actually helps “to build new connections in the brain,” (NMTSA website), there are many ways it can be applied depending on the needs and deficits of the individual. Currently Tony’s new NMT therapist, Jessi, is doing a phenomenal job helping us with strategies and techniques to increase his flexibility, as well as spontaneous communication. However, I do tend to focus a lot at this time on areas that impact Tony’s ability to function in public because his increased growth rate from Sotos makes it pretty important to help him gain some of these skills before he gets bigger than me. NMT has been demonstrated in studies to be efficacious for supporting improved function in multiple domains, and I have included links on a couple of pages as some reading to consider that give quick overviews of this.
The Academy Of Neurologic Music Therapy Research Information
Temple Talks…about Autism and Sensory Issues, by Dr. Temple Grandin
This is a very short read, but I think there is a lot of really useful information in it, especially for teachers, therapists, and loved ones of individuals with Autism or Sensory Processing Disorders. While Dr. Grandin concisely provides some practical recommendations for effectively supporting growth in many key areas, I especially think implementing her advice that those with more significant sensory impairments will need a more gentle approach is imperative to progress and the emotional well-being of the individual involved.
I have unfortunately seen a few therapists, especially when Tony was in the public school system, push a bit too hard and too fast without forming any sort of bond with him. Our little man is willing to overlook an overreach in expectations if he has a bond with someone. However, what we have seen is if someone starts out consistently expecting a quicker speed of involvement or improvement than he’s capable of giving, he won’t ever cooperate with them even if they slow down and back off for a bit. I believe this also underscores the importance of asking for (and respecting) the input of those who have worked most closely with each individual.
I love that Dr. Grandin points out in here that often there are medical causes for behaviors in a non-verbal individual, but I think parents and providers also need to be aware that sometimes medical challenges can camouflage sensory processing differences. For example, our son was on a medication for many months during the first year of his life because of the fluid on his kidneys. We had attributed his vomiting to the medication, because it was a possible side effect. Only after he had been off the medication for several months were we able to start connecting the dots to sensory differences as the true source. When he started sensory integration and occupational therapy, we finally began seeing a reduction in the incidence of puking.
I also really loved her recommendation to give choices and a bit of control when possible to help individuals with sensory differences feel more comfortable in their surroundings. Overall, I think this book packs a lot of great insights into a very compact reading length, which is why it is definitely some reading to consider.
