Clinical Experience |
Type of Facility: State Facility for Blind and Multihandicapped Individuals Patient Population using the Somatron: Date of Reported Experiences: August, 1990 Primary Findings: Improved communication. Assisting in post-seizure recovery. Music Used: Not reported. Contact Information: In a letter written to Senator Kennedy, Dr. Beth Denisch, Music Therapist for the Massachusetts Association for the Blind, discussed the success of Music Therapy with residential students at the Massachusetts Association for the Blind’s Multihandicapped Children’s Program. Children whose physical handicaps prevent their participation in live Music Therapy sessions are provided with opportunities to experience vibrotactile stimulation via a Somatron. Dr. Denisch discusses several clinical uses of the Somatron with her students during her letter. For students that are hearing impaired, she tells how “feeling” music through the Somatron “accentuates” anything that they may be able to hear. Dr. Denisch reports that the experience “effects communication, creating an understandable link to them between what they are hearing and feeling”. One technique adopted by Dr. Denisch during these Somatron sessions is to reinforce the student’s experience by tapping the rhythm and / or melody being experienced through the Somatron on the student’s body. This, she reports, brings the student in touch with the outside world, allowing him or her to share their experience with another person. Many of the students of the facility suffer from chronic seizures. Dr. Denisch reports, in her letter, that the Somatron has been used successfully after a seizure to help students “transition back to a more daily awareness”. |