playing on the spectrum

Written By Edward Obermueller

How to help students with Asperger’s, ADHD and Neuro-divergent students

She was wound tight as a drum.

Wresting her violin out of the case, this high-school student threw herself into playing her piece, even before saying hello.

She crashed around the notes, her bow smashing and sawing against the strings. Her frustration increased, as she was not playing cleanly or with good tone. Her body, already full of tension, began to jerk and start, and her already tight hands clutched harder, like a hawk wired to clamp around prey for fear it will escape.

I asked her to stop, but as soon as she did, a barrage of words came forth, analyzing what was wrong. The more we tried to talk about it, the worse it got, as she would not look me in the eye, and seemed not to be listening to me. She continued to interrupt with more bad playing, all the while getting more and more frustrated, convincing herself that what I said wasn’t right, and that nothing would fix her problems.

Was this just bad behavior?

Another student, a four-year old boy, seemed intent on doing everything else besides play his violin.

He would not listen to direction, would not look me in the eye, and would not imitate my playing. He showed little interest in the sort of games and body movement exercises that work with every other student. He would fixate on things in the room, like how an object looked or how my tuner worked.

He showed clear intelligence and ability to play when he wanted to, but nothing I did or said seemed to stick. We made no progress for several lessons.

It would have been easy to put both of these students' problem down to “bad behavior” or “lack of practice” but I knew that neither one of these was the full explanation.

Not Business As Usual

Every Child Can! Edward is shown here helping students in downtown Morristown, NJ.

I would place both of these students in the high-functioning Aspergers spectrum.

Many parents will inform a teacher that their child has Asperger's. But some will not, either because they don't wish to share this information or they have not been formally diagnosed. (Some parents resist the labeling that comes with this diagnosis, and some simply have not faced the possibility.)

Sometimes with high-functionig Asperger's kids, they and their parents may not know they are on the spectrum. For those students, a confusing array of behaviors such as tantrums, OCD, and other problems mix in a confusing way with otherwise social, intelligent, mature behavior.

What if you don't know for sure?

Empathy is key here. You may not know for sure whether they have Asperger's, but if you watch for the behavior signs, and remain open to adapting to the symptoms, you might be the one to help them achieve a sense of understanding and acceptance of who they are.

How to help

While I am not an expert in Aspergers or in music therapy, I have observed and worked with a number of students demonstrating the characteristics of the Asperger's spectrum, and I want to share the things I learned to do to help.

There are certain surprising ways to dissolve the (sometimes formidable) walls that Aspergers students put up

We can ease them into being more musical, but the methods used are perhaps different than what we might use with other students.

The first thing that I had to get over was what I thought was foolproof and universal, actually was not. I was surprised when something that I was confident would work either fell flat or completely backfired and produced an emotionally negative atmosphere in the lesson.

What I thought was foolproof and universal, actually was not.

Once I got over the hurdle of expecting these students to act a certain way, I was able to assess what they really needed and apply a different strategy.

Capture the body

Each student is different, but one thing stands out to me: the music itself is therapeutic. Since music captures us bodily, many technical fixes seem to take care of themselves when the student is simply allowed to play more.

It is okay to let go of picky technicalities. Things that seem to help to explain to other students don’t seem to help with those on the spectrum. (A lesson here even for the mainstream student: sometimes we need to let the music guide our bodies, rather than the other way around. Fewer words, more playing!)

Fewer words, more playing.

I am a very hands-on teacher. I tend use touch with my students to help establish body awareness. With some Asperger's students this isn't possible, since their sensitivity and comfort level may dictate keeping a respectful distance. Some are fine with touch, others are not.

If touch is not possible, let the music do the touching. Again, the music will capture their body in a way you cannot with your words or your touching. And over time, as their comfort level increases, you may be able to ease into gentle manual adjustment.

You may also want to point them to video and audio resources to help them self-teach. (For example, my video on how to have a more flexible wrist)

Some Rules of Thumb

In general I found that most of the time these rules of thumb worked for students who I thought might be on the spectrum, even if their parents didn’t have a formal diagnosis:

  • Fewer words, more playing. (see above)

  • Don’t talk, argue, or explain. Just play. Find a way to play together, something the student will accept, at their level, for as much of the lesson as possible.

  • The body must relax to play, and playing makes the body relax. Breathing exercises may be necessary to break the initial tension cycle, if that is getting in the way.

  • Routine is essential. We need to go over what to do immediately after opening the case and getting out the violin - and it is not crashing into the piece! There needs to be a warmup routine that involves breathing, slow playing, easy playing, and simple notes.

  • Let go of picky technical fixes (bend your pinky, don’t do that with your wrist, etc.) These tend to get into the world of verbal explanation, and we need to minimize that for these students.

  • For young children, I found that a number focus predominates. Numbers help them to play rather than talk or wander off mentally. (Numbered finger charts are available to download in our shop.)

  • Get them in the Right Brain. The Right Brain is non-verbal, connected to the body, and non-analytical. It seems that Aspergers spectrum students become “trapped” in a sense, in an over-active Left Brain. The reason music therapy helps is that it activates the Right Brain and, for a time, closes down the over-hyper, verbally argumentative, and non-musical Left Brain.

As she breathed with me, my tense high-school student relaxed.

I asked her to listen to me just long enough to ask her to slow down and play some long smooth bows. Then we went back to her piece and played it together, breathing at the phrases.

In the next lesson we breathed again moving our arms up and down like seaweed, then played together. In the next lesson we breathed and practiced Jellyfish fingers. The focus on breathing kept her out of her “wordy” Left Brain and empowered her holistic, body-aware Right Brain.

[See the videos for these techniques @FiveMinuteViolin]

How Many Times Can You Do ________?

As I began to realize that numbers were the name of the game for the four-year-old, I started asking him to count everything.

I would ask him to count how many times I moved my bow. Then I would ask if he could do the same number. I found I could get him to do almost anything if I prefaced it with “How many times can you….” I asked him to count notes, count to 10 while holding his violin up, count how many times he could tap his fingers on the tapes, and so on.

As an experiment, I made a numbered finger chart of Lightly Row for him, and he learned it in the space of a single lesson. We began to progress quickly through the next pieces, using finger charts. Hiccups and technical quirks seemed to fix themselves, almost by magic.

This student's ability with numbers made the complexity of a string instrument become a source of interest and stimulation rather than a stumbling block.

Further Resources

Asperger's students are wonderful, engaging, intelligent, and capable kids. Playing music seems to help tap their intelligence, just in a different way. Every student has a unique range of learning styles and behaviors, so perhaps our Asperger's students are really giving us a gift, in helping us to adapt better.

Asperger's students are really giving us a gift

I encourage anyone dealing with Aspergers spectrum or autism to pursue more resources and become familiar with the medical and therapeutic avenues available. My recommendations are fairly specific to playing an instrument: my aim here is not to diagnose or treat the condition, but simply to share what has worked for me as a violin teacher.

You may wish to consult the following resources:

http://www.musictherapy.org/research/musictherapy/

http://www.connollymusic.com/stringovation/can-playing-a-musical-instrument-help-my-autistic-child

http://www.education.com/question/aspergers-music-aptitude-finding-children-interest/

Share your experience

If you have an Asperger’s spectrum student or your own child is, please consider comments to this post to add suggestions to the discussion. We can all benefit from hearing more about how to adapt to this unique and wonderful learning style.

~~~

Need help with your Spectrum Child on violin?

Edward Obermueller
Previous

The three assistants
Next

How Mindfulness helps musicians