Breakthrough with Attention-Deficit / Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) student

In this blog post, I would like to share what I hope is a breakthrough with my ADHD music student today.

My student is 10 years old diagnosed with Attention-Deficit / Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).   She is a really bright kid,  speaks well and talkative but very low in confidence.  Every other week, she will have some sort of injury, in fact today she said she twisted her wrist ice-skating and wanted me to sign on her cast.   

In some previous lessons, she would be quite spacey and watch her tablet instead of focussing on the music score.  It is likely that she is not interested in the score that I had printed for her, especially, the songs that she is not familiar,  songs that have no lyrics,  songs that are more than one page.    This seems to be the trend for most of my special needs music student.   My observation is that they have no confidence to complete the task because its too long or complicated and not because they were lazy.  They find it tiring to process so much information all at once, especially scores that require them to play with both hands.       

Today, I presented to her a short simple music piece 'O Christmas Tree'.  She obliged to play the song as Christmas season will be here soon and she likes Christmas with all the presents etc.    

In the beginning, she was trying to talk me out of playing this piece but after some persuasion, she played the treble part using the right hand of course.   She obliged with the first line after I told her that she can look at the note names.  She said she does not know the notes but she can play by looking at teh note names. Her reason is not valid as she had a music teacher before me and have music books which can attest to the fact that she is knows the notes.  From my observations, traditional methods of music pedagogy does not sit well with SN students.  SN students need additional support, like note names.  They also prefer music with lyrics, it helps them with the rhythm.  

Next, I proceeded to ask her to play without looking at the note names but looking only at her fingers.  She was hesitant because her previous teacher never allowed her to look at her fingers.   She seems confuse and amuse that I would ask her to look at her fingers.   By allowing her to look at her fingers, it gives her a visual memory of the physical movement of her fingers.  This movement will be linked to the note names and notation.   Thereafter, I told her that she can look down whenever she feels  that there is a need.  I gave her the confidence that a combination of score and fingers are ok and she does not need to feel guilty looking down at her fingers.  I also told her that she was over processing the information on the page and she should just look at the score and execute what she saw on the page and not think ahead.  She was happy to oblige and she played all the notes correctly.  She was very surprised that she was able to play for the first time a long passage without too much mistakes.  She said:" I don't know how I was able to play perfectly."   I told her that she must believe in herself and trust her instincts.  

Later that evening, her mother texted me to inform me that her daughter, shouted out to her: "Mummy, I show you something" and showed her that she can play the piano.   Mummy is happy that she has gain some confidence in herself.  I hope she can keep this up and build her confidence through music.   

In summary,   SN students prefer to read note names then the musical notes.  They need the lyrics to guide them rhythmically and they work better with short passages or short music pieces. 

    

Please leave a comment and share your experience with SN students.