Technology, SEN and EY

In this chapter, we present a novel framework of musical development in the Early Years, which is informed by the now well-established Sounds of Intent (SoI) framework for the assessment of the musical development of children and young people with complex needs. Notwithstanding the novelty of the SoI paradigm, where the Special Educational Needs (SEN) world is now coming to inform the so-called mainstream world of Early Years (EY) education, we raise the importance of the conceptualisation of an extensible taxonomy of music educational technologies. We suggest that the theoretical framework of Sounds of Intent in the Early Years is a robust platform on which the proposed taxonomy can sit, and propose a way forward in developing such a taxonomy. We pose that this will lead to the decoupling from current practice that is believed to be tool-centric, often industry driven and not necessarily one that fosters critical thinking that places the child on the centre of the focus

Promoting the musical engagement of autistic children in the early years through a program of parental support: an ecological research study

Some autistic children display an intuitive capacity to reproduce and restyle the musical stimuli that they encounter in their environments. Music also offers a safe space for the development of social competencies and, across the spectrum, musical interventions are regarded as an effective way of promoting engagement with others. Yet, there is a lack of empirically researched music programs for parents and carers of children with autism. In this study, 11 families with autistic children incorporated music making into everyday life, supported by researcher-practitioners and framed by resources outlining musical activities based on the Sounds of Intent in the Early Years framework. Assessment of video data and interviews revealed that the new resources were flexible enough to be adapted to each child and they helped parents to build confidence to engage with their children musically. It was found that children had an increased interest and engagement in music as well as in joint play, which impacted positively on their musical and social development. The interpersonal music spaces created by the parents provided opportunities for unlocking expressiveness and interactive behavior, which in turn supported verbal development, emotional regulation and social interaction. These findings have implications for arts-in-health research and highlight the potentially crucial role of parents as mentors for their child’s musical development. The study further demonstrates that specialist musical training is not a requirement to develop parent–child engagement in music making at home