If you are the parent, caregiver, teacher, or clinician of a child with limited or emerging speech skills, you know how challenging it can be. It can be heartbreaking to not be able to understand your child, and it’s scary to imagine that they aren’t able to communicate when they need something. There is a shortage of speech professionals and there are often long waitlists, but even if a family can see a clinician, it can cost a lot of money and doesn’t always help. It’s frustrating and concerning for parents, therapists, and educators who just want to see the child succeed, and it often leaves them asking, “Now what?” The good news is, there is an accessible and universal tool that can help: music!
Music is a reliable and powerful way to facilitate speech/language and develop communication, making it an extremely valuable tool for kids who are learning speech skills. Just like how many of us learned the alphabet: the ABC’s song, which is a structured melody to help memorize information! Music in all forms – singing stories, background music, giving instructions in a sing-songy tone – has been shown to be especially and highly effective for kids with ASD. Research has shown that musical stimuli are more effective for learning and producing vocabulary words than speech stimuli. This is because music’s structure is similar to that of language, but children with autism often have a perceptual preference for music stimuli and a high capacity for pattern recognition. Because they prefer to hear music, it serves as a good motivator and reinforcer while learning. Music and language both have an organized structure where a pattern unfolds over time, and musical elements like melody and rhythm are based on the sequential structure that spoken language follows. Additionally, things like musical tone and dynamic perception are involved in the perception, quality, and quantity of spoken stimuli. This means that the auditory processing systems responsible for pattern analysis are similar between the perception and production of music and speech. This connection and overlap makes music a powerful tool for learning language!
If you want to implement music into your child or client’s routine, but aren’t sure where to start, Sing & Speak 4 Kids is a great resource! Our team of scientists, therapists, educators, and musicians collaborated on this project to create a fun and accessible music therapy program to support speech development in children. It’s a simple web and mobile app game that teaches target vocabulary words through music, starting with singing songs and then transitioning into answering spoken questions. Our program is evidence-based, with research showing that just two to three weekly 10-minute sessions can improve verbal scores by an average of 8%. Additionally, our Director of Science, Dr. Hayoung Lim, has published research which found that practicing the game with a parent can be equally effective as practicing with a teacher or professional. This means that parents have more opportunity to directly help their children, which can improve relationships and reduce the burden on educators and clinicians. Her research shows that overall, children who play Sing & Speak 4 Kids have an expanded vocabulary, use bigger words, can verbally identify objects, and are more engaged than they were prior to playing. Sing & Speak 4 Kids also works in a teletherapy setting, with the clinician guiding the parent and child. The program features data-tracking tools to monitor progress and to allow members of a child’s support team to share information and collaborate.
For parents, Sing & Speak 4 Kids is an affordable, flexible, and engaging way to integrate music into your child’s routine, giving them a fun experience that also helps them learn. If this program seems like a good fit for you, it’s easy to sign up! We have a basic and a premium plan – for $9.99 and $19.99 per month respectively – that each have 18 songs and over 100 vocabulary words. The premium plan also features pre- and post-tests, shared accounts, and progress tracking. If your child’s clinician has a premium subscription, your family will be able to access the game for free! We also offer financial support through our California Regional Centers.
If you are a speech professional and want to hear more about our program, we have a continuing education course featured on the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association website that you can access for free. Our program can also be a great complementary tool for music/occupational therapists and special educators! For more details on Dr. Lim’s research, see below. Her article describes the components of the ABA-Verbal Behavior approach, which closely align with the progression of the Sing & Speak 4 Kids game.
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Sources cited:
Lim HA, Draper E. The effects of music therapy incorporated with applied behavior analysis verbal behavior approach for children with autism spectrum disorders. J Music Ther. 2011 Winter;48(4):532-50. doi: 10.1093/jmt/48.4.532. PMID: 22506303.
