Socialization in the Children's Hospital Setting

Providing social interaction and normalization for a child with a long-term hospital stay is a key goal in music therapy. With younger-aged children, this often looks like play through music. For adolescents, it often consists of singing or learning how to play an instrument like the ukulele.

An example of an intervention geared toward younger-aged children includes singing a song like Five Green and Speckled Frogs and incorporating egg shakers and counting. I did this while doing one of my practicums as a music therapy student, and the children loved it. In this song, the number of frogs in each verse are reduced by one, so the therapist or the child removes an egg for each verse. I observed an intern singing this song and putting the egg shakers in boomwhackers, sliding out into a drum. The patient I observed was two years old and absolutely loved it.

When working on the goal of interaction and normalization with adolescents, interventions need to be adjusted to the appropriate developmental level. I worked with an 11-year-old, and she loved to sing. We worked on her favorite song, and I showed her three chords on the ukulele. This music therapy intervention allowed her to escape the reality of her discomfort and pain, feeling more like a “regular kid” and not a patient in a hospital. The mom got tearful upon seeing her daughter engaged and joyful and expressed gratefulness for the opportunities that music therapy offered during their less-than-ideal hospital stays.

I didn’t observe this while doing my music therapy practicum at the children’s hospital, but I love the idea of facilitating jam sessions for those patients who are able to leave their rooms and participate. That would be an ideal method of working on socialization goals through music. I hope to implement this idea the next time I work in this setting.