Music-Therapy assesment for children with developmental disorder focused on musical development.

Music Therapy in Early Intervention with children diagnosed with Developmental Disorders requires specific strategies, procedures and techniques adapted to chronological age, child musical development, and clinical diagnosis. Music Therapy Assessment for this population are in progress, and there are not so much literature published on the topic.

The Individual Music Therapy Assessment Protocol involves the child and the music therapist in active music making based on the assessment technique SOUND AND MUSICAL EXPERIENCES AND GAMES (SoMEG).

The SOUND-MUSICAL EXPERIENCES AND GAMES (SoMEG) are a set of techniques based on sound-musical experiences and games used to observe, identify and describe musical behaviors in a situation of interactive music-making (Lazo, 2005). During the application of SoMEG the music therapist:

• Observe the child’s potential (strengths) and identifies the child’s needs (weaknesses)

• Collect data to formulate goals and objectives, intervention procedures and treatment plan
  

Obtain specific music therapy assessment information that can contribute to general diagnosis of the child and the treatment interventioThe Individual Music-Therapy Assessment Procedure (IMTP) allowed to categorize the child's developmental level in terms of sensory-motor musical play (0 to 12 months - 12 to 24 months) and symbolic music game (24 to 36 months - 36 to 48 months). Multiple Single-Case analysis show that the SoMEG and PEMuS seem to be appropriate for the assessment of children with different diagnoses (aged 0 -6 years-old), when focused on sound-musical development in a music therapy context.

The Individual Music-Therapy Assessment Procedure (IMTP) has a strong methodological development from the evaluation perspective. This theoretical development support the commitment and interest of the authors for the development and the construction of an evaluation theory in Music Therapy.