British journal of music therapy 

About: British journal of music therapy is an academic journal published by SAGE Publishing. The journal publishes majorly in the area(s): Music therapy & Context (language use). It has an ISSN identifier of 1359-4575. Over the lifetime, 306 publications have been published receiving 2173 citations.

Indications in Music Therapy: Evidence from Assessment That Can Identify the Expectations of Music Therapy as a Treatment for Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD); Meeting the Challenge of Evidence Based Practice

Abstract: When children with Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD) are assessed in music therapy, significant strengths, potentials and resources emerge that may remain hidden in other, more formalised assessments. Therefore, it is becoming more necessary to develop a systematic method of describing this responsiveness, in order to define the expectations of therapy. Music therapy is a particularly important intervention for children with ASD to engage and nurture their capacity for flexibility, creativity, variability and tolerance of change, in order to balance the more structured and behaviourally driven education that is currently popular. The potential of treatment can be defined within the context of meeting healthcare needs. A case study will illustrate a model for defining ‘expectations of therapy’, by drawing on one child's awakened capacity for interaction through shared, improvised music-making.This article includes a long appendix providing an evidence-based review and recommendations regarding assessment an...

Musical Elaborations: What Has the New Musicology to Say to Music Therapy?

Abstract: In this article I review some of the latest books in what has been called the ‘New Musicology’. I also ask why music therapists and musicologists seem until now to have taken so little notice of each other's work, but suggest that this situation is changing. Developments in critical thinking about music represented by the ‘New Musicology’ may be of particular relevance to music therapists searching for theoretical perspectives on their work. But equally the theorists of the ‘New Musicology’ could learn much from music therapy – which can be seen in many ways as a ‘laboratory’ for new thinking about the nature of music and its place in society.

Turn-Taking in Music Therapy with Children with Communication Disorders:

Abstract: In a well-functioning dialogue, the nonverbal and often implicit visual and auditory cues ensure good continuation without interruptions or overlapping speak. In mutual interplay, both partners participate in turn-organisation, and therefore an analysis of cues indicating turn-taking and turn-yielding can provide information about the participants' social skills, whether or not the dialogue is verbal.This article presents relevant concepts from conversation analysis literature in order to analyse music therapy interplay aimed at promoting preverbal and social skills. As the character of the turn-organisation is dependent on the developmental age of the participants, the described cues are compared to research in early mother–child interplay, as well as studies of turn-organisation in dialogues with disabled children.The theoretical part of the article is illustrated by a turn-analysis of case material from music therapy with a 2½-year-old boy with communication disorders. The analysis was a part of the au...

Finding a Balance between Psychological Thinking and Musical Awareness in Music Therapy Theory — A Psychoanalytic Perspective:

Abstract: There is a growing body of literature which suggests that it is possible to provide safe therapeutic encounters without reference to non-music derived theory (Lee 1996), and that music therapy theo...