Playlist management with autistic student
Found in: Special Needs & Learning Differences
Emily C., California
What would you recommend for this still quite new student of mine who is 19 years old and doesn’t like to review the first two songs he’s already learned, and could play without any help a few weeks back?
The lady who guides him during his practices says he doesn’t like to play pieces again if he could already play them, unless they are ones he likes very well. So although she still tries to encourage him to review them often, he’s slowly forgetting how to play those songs and needs reminders again.
She’s very frustrated because he won’t cooperate, and has to keep telling him, “If you do it well the first time, then you don’t need to do it again”.
Rebecca G., Colorado
With students on the spectrum or with other diagnoses that main their brains work a bit differently, I find it’s necessary to basically throw many of the “rules” out the window. My main objective is to get these students playing and enjoying doing so, which often means letting go of many of my expectations and being willing to do things differently.
Here’s an example: I’m working with a 7-year-old student on the spectrum who was starting to fight practicing each day when his playlist got up to about 20 songs, and it was affecting his ability to learn new things and continue enjoying playing. Simultaneously, he was having great behavioral difficulties in school. I decided that I wanted piano to be a place of refuge for him rather than one more thing that might be causing him to feel defeated, so I cut his playlist back to his 10 favorite songs. This particular student also hates playing accompaniment pieces – this kid is really smart, and I think the same chords over and over bore him; also, he can’t handle other people singing when he plays because of sensory issues.
So I started just having him learn the major chords as a game, and he got them all really fast, so now we can start recognizing them in other pieces he’s playing. He got through Danny Boy in Db in Accompaniment 1 and was pretty unhappy, so I stopped there and told him he didn’t have to play those pieces any more and that we would work on chords in other ways. I didn’t touch any of that for a couple of months, and then this week I decided to teach him the last 2 chords he was missing (Eb and Bb) and then quiz him on them all with flash cards. He nailed almost every single one of them the first time!
I think one of the thrills of teaching students like this is looking for where their individual brilliance lies. This kid loves piano, and he’s an incredibly fast learner. I just have to give him projects he’s motivated to work on and then he takes off!
Bottom line: flexibility and figuring out what works for the student has been a path to success for me on this front.
Laurie Richards, Nebraska
The most important thing is that he gets enjoyment from playing the piano. Maybe more improv would suit him if he doesn’t like a lot of repetition.