MUW’s Music Therapy Clinic hosts Little Music Makers
COLUMBUS, Miss. (WCBI) – For its 5th semester, Mississippi University for Women’s Music Therapy Clinic is hosting Little Music Makers.
Musical therapy uses music for whatever needs an individual or a group may have.
This 12-week program hosts children four and younger each Tuesday from 9:30 a.m. to 10:15 a.m.
For Carmen Osburn, Musical Therapy is a passion she loves to share with others. One of her favorite parts is the Little Music Makers group.
And these children are learning much more than how to carry a tune. They are strengthening their cognitive skills.
“We work on developmental milestones, sharing, passing things around a circle, starting and stopping, impulse control, emotional expression, we work on academic skills like colors and animals and physical skills, motor skills, head, shoulders, knees and toes, that kinds of thing. And it’s just really a fun time and a good way for the parents to bond with their kids musically,” Osburn said.
The activities are adaptable for children of all developmental levels and inclusive for those with special needs.
“Children are all kind of all on the same developmental level, whether they have a pre-identified special need or not,” said Osburn. “So we want to include everybody in this group and give all children of all abilities the opportunity to make music with their peers and for their parents to make music as well, and see that health, that strength that music gives them in their everyday life.”
Osburn said the Musical Therapy Clinic at MUW also hosts a special needs choir for adults, with a concert at the end of each semester. And, they have private clients with different special needs that work with students. The students do clinical work out in the community as well.
“We have a group of students working at a local assisted living facility. And one of our students is working at an elementary school in the county doing music therapy as part of their clinical training,” said Osburn.
Osburn said she loves to see the bond that is formed between the families of the children who attend.
“They talk and they bond and they play outside when we’re done sometimes,” Osburn said. “And I’ve even heard them say that they’re going to have playdates, you know, outside of the music therapy group. And I love seeing that because sometimes moms of young kids can feel isolated and they need that community and that support of each other. I think the overall goal for this is to to really have that fun, healthy experience between the moms or the dads and the kids. This is a great opportunity to have that emotional expression, that physical release of active music making and just really that that bonding of the parents or caregivers with the with the little kids.”
Osburn plans to grow the program to offer more opportunities for the community.
This is a free service, and registration is open for the duration of the clinic.
To register, contact Osburn at 662-241-7897 or email ceosburn@muw.edu.
