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Hagedorn, V. S.  (2002).  Accommodations for special needs students: What we can do.  General Music Today, 15(3). 20.

            This author of this article writes about actual applications of research dealing with accommodating special needs students.  Unlike so many articles that state the problem, I was pleased to find actual specific helpful ideas in this article that general music teachers can employ to help the learning process for special needs learners.  Ms. Hagedorn writes in a clear understandable way as she explains how a teacher can address common problems of special learners including those with reading difficulties, visual and oral learners and mathematics.  She relates all of these different difficulties, and more, directly to their application in the classroom music classroom.

            The first section of the article deals directly with the problems that a student with a reading difficulty will deal with in their music class.  Simple tasks such as reading a particular verse of music off of a staff and skipping down to the particular verse on the next staff, may not be easy to understand for special needs learners.  Certain visual aides that a teacher can use to help these students such as using post-it notes or highlighting text in different colors would be of assistance.  Another difficulty that a student might have to deal with is following along with a lecture type class.  Even though most music classes are no longer taught in this style, it is important for the teacher to understand that with special needs learners, the students should be actively involved and taught with multiple stimuli to teach different concepts.  The third type of difficulty that Ms. Hagedorn describes is children with mathematical problems.  This will be evident while trying to teach rhythm to certain students.  The author suggests using manipulatives in teaching the students about durations of sound.

            The last major section of the artice discusses the “LoTTIE Kit” – Low Tech Tools for Inclusive Education.  The materials found in this kit are referred to as assistive technology.  Assistive technology is defined as “any device, whether it’s purchased off the shelf, home-made, or modified, that helps people with special needs maintain or increase their functional capabilities.”[1]  Although this LoTTIE kit is quite cost prohibitive, the author tells teachers what they can do to physically adapt instruments and other objects in the music classroom, to aide the students.  Such examples include color-coding certain instruments and putting rubber grips on mallets or drum sticks.  Another physical modification to music would be attaching color-coded tabs to music to show which bell to hit at what time.

            As opposed to the de l’Etoile article that I critiqued, this article spends more time on the actual applications of techniques that a music teacher would employ while teaching students with learning disabilities.  Although I feel that the theory is very important, it is difficult to include all aspects of music education and special education in one article.  This article provides the teacher with many specific techniques applicable to teaching many different concepts in music to special needs learners.

            One such example that seems appropriate to classroom music as well as instrumental music is a technique to play claves.  Ms. Hagedorn suggests using Velcro to attach one clave to a desk or a fixed object.  The student can then use their other hand with the 2^nd clave to strike the first clave.  This example would be used for students that have motor difficulties.  She offers other suggestions such as placing rubber pencil grips on the handles of mallets to assist the students’ grip.  These techniques are something that I might not have thought of.  When dealing with a special education class, it is imperative to have a large bank of ideas and tools at your disposal to help you overcome difficult situations.

            Another technique that the author suggests is one that I use already, but she brought to mind another way to use the tool.  I have a class set of small white-boards that I use for children to write out a measure (4 or 2 beats) of music.  We then arrange and re-arrange the small white-boards on music stands and perform the music as a composition.  The author suggests using the white-boards as a tool to allow students to answer questions in writing as opposed to verbally.  There are several students in my classes who do not like to speak even when I am trying to solicit an answer directly from them.  If I allow the students to answer the question all at the same time on their white-boards (like final jeopardy), the students would hopefully be more apt to answer the question.

            In the section that she discusses students with mathematical difficulties, she explains how it can be helpful to use manipulatives to show the students about duration of the beat.  I have found this particular technique to be extremely helpful as you teach a student about an abstract idea using concrete methods.  I like to use a ‘Whole’ piece of paper with 4 symbols on it to symbolize a whole note.  When I cut it in ‘Half’, there are 2 symbols.  When I cut it in quarters, there is one symbol on each piece.  In my experience, the students never forget the relationship between half notes and whole notes again!

            One of the major threads that I have found while reading literature based on the education of special needs students is the use of an organizational flow-chart, or outline of the class.  This author suggests using large laminated cards as visual cues that outline the material that we will be covering on a particular day.  These cards, which can have pictures or writing on them, can be rearranged on any given day to show the students what they will be learning.  This will help the special needs students organize their thoughts for the lesson.