Second Day: Surge of Creativity

I love it when I am bored. Boredom leads to many different things for me - napping, chasing the cat, going outside, and making things. Yesterday was a boredom day that led to a new idea.

Let me explain.

Yesterday morning, I got up, blogged a bit about my intentions for this week-long break, and then did the chores that I needed to do. I went to the car place and got new brake pads, rotor repairs, and a brand new battery. I went to the Dollar Tree and bought some new storage containers. I then came home and started thinking.

By late afternoon, I was completely and totally uninspired to do anything. I didn't want to work on anything, the television shows were uninspiring, and I was restless. This started me thinking.

One of the things that has always frustrated me about my music therapy clinic is the lack of communication options that I have available for clients. It is difficult to anticipate requests and needs for icons for 110+ clients, so I have always erred on the side of trying my best, but feeling very frustrated most of the time because I felt that I was denying folks the opportunity to tell me what they wanted and needed.

My bored brain started thinking about my current music therapy space and setup and started exploring options.

Goal? To increase opportunities for authentic client choice with flexibility to use in both individual (more choices) and group (less choices) sessions.

Solution? I thought of many, but eventually came up with one that I can actually put together and use (I think).

Here are my solution ideas - these are the ones that I'm not going to use, but they may be ideas that will be effective for others in different spaces and therapy situations.

PECS book/binder - I already use binders for emotion choices, so it seemed to be a natural extension to have binders for other things as well. Then, I started making a list of all the things I would need clients to be able to communicate, and I quickly realized that groups of 10+ clients require many more choices than my binders would be able to accommodate. I will be using these binders to expand the options that we have during our opening TMEs, but not use them for all communication options.

PECS wall - We have, in the past, attempted to have PECS options posted on the wall for people to use. I don't like this setup for the music therapy room for several reasons. First, anyone who wants to use the wall has to get up and walk over to where it is located. Second, you can't change out the options or offer limits as easily when all things are displayed all the time. Third, the client has to have a facilitator nearby to see what the client is choosing. So, this is not the option for me.

Box full of PECS - The issues that I have with this set-up (my current way of trying to give clients the tools they need to talk to me in my language - which, by the way, is not really fair to them) is that taking time to get those pictures ready during sessions is limiting to both me and the client. I have to stop the musical intervention in order to get the PECS, find the icons I need, and then present them to the clients. This takes too much time, even when I can anticipate what we are going to do in sessions! There has to be a better way!!

So, here is my idea.

I have decided to use my binders along with storage-specific icons to help my clients communicate what they want and need.

Part One: a four-page spread in binders with the answers and questions that are most likely to arise during my music therapy sessions. Page one: "first→then" and session choices for those clients who want to know what we are doing. These will also be used for individual clients to assist in structuring their sessions - supporting and expecting client choice. This page will involve velcro and specific PECS for clients to move around. Page two: "I want" pages. These will include printed generic options. For example, there will be a PEC for dancing, one for music listening, one for playing instruments, and one for using a book. I will come up with other options as I continue to develop this idea. Page three: "opposite" choices. This page will have the yes/no, louder/quieter, stop/go, faster/slower, repeat/new song, more/finished icons and will be printed on the page (rather than being moved back and forth). Page four: I'm not sure what to do with this page, yet.

Part Two: Signs on each of my storage cabinets that will have options for clients to choose from for each session. I have three different cabinets. One holds sensory materials and manipulatives, one holds string instruments, and one holds rhythm instruments. I am already set up with location cards - clients go to the indicated location when given a specific card - so I can use those cards in the binders for session structure. Once the client takes the card to the specific cabinet, they can then choose what they want to use from the cabinet itself. I can structure the options available or display all options. This will be a moveable PECS board. Things will be changed to accommodate client preferences and session strategies. I can also provide the exact number of PECS that correspond to the exact number of instruments that I have in the cabinet so clients know that there are only five ukuleles available to play. When the ukulele PECS are gone, no one else can have a ukulele.

My hope is that this new way of doing things will encourage my clients to make choices and communicate what they want/need with me. It will take some time, but I think it will work much better than it works now. It will take some getting used to, but so did our emotion options, and those are working REALLY well these days. I will try to make things as flexible as possible for me, so that I can use these ideas in ways that will help us learn to communicate better with each other.

One last thing. I want to get a choice book for musicians, but I'm not quite sure how to do that without constantly having to change the book. I have a half-formed idea about photo albums and printed pictures, but often my students do not know what their favorite performers look like. They also haven't seen an album cover, so they cannot relate the music that they prefer to either the performer or the album. That makes choosing music an abstract process which is difficult for some of my clients. I will continue to think about this situation as I am making my new visuals for my clinic. I am thinking this might be a good product to have on my website for others to use.

From boredom to communication. Yesterday turned out to be a good day. Now, I get the thrill of putting this into reality - design, developing, and producing these visual aids for my clients and my clinic. I'll post pictures when I have some!!

Here's the first picture...




I've decided that "choose" is the word I'll use to unite these visuals for my clients. Every thing will have this word on it somewhere. Choose. 

Off to see where boredom will take me today. Happy Saturday, and Happy Canada Day!