Music Therapy Songs - Listen and Learn Music

Listen and Learn Music

I homeschool my child, Matthew. He spent his kindergarten year in a private Christian pre-school and I stayed as his aide. He was enrolled in public school for grades 1 through 7 in a special education classroom but was mainstreamed 50% of his day with an aide for appropriate activities. I removed Matthew from public school at the beginning of his 8th grade year and made the choice to homeschool him. I have been homeschooling Matthew now for the past two years.

Matthew loves music. He learns more easily through music and songs that teach. I have sung silly made-up songs that rhyme to him since he was a baby to help him learn body parts and other things.

When I began homeschooling Matthew I wanted to be sure to incorporate music into his homeschool time and hoped to have music therapy included as part of his music and learning.

I was absolutely thrilled when I found Listen and Learn Music. The website was created by Board-Certified Music Therapist, Rachel Rambach. She offers the opportunity to listen to full length songs and to sing a variety of learning songs at no charge with your child that are so much fun. She will even personalize hello, good-bye and birthday songs and she will create a custom CD with ten of your child's favorite songs for $10.00. I have purchased two custom CDs for Matthew and they are wonderful! I highly recommend exploring Listen and Learn Music with your child.

I wish that Rachel was Matthew's Music Therapist but we live in Oregon and Rachel works full-time as the Music Therapist at Hope Institute in Springfield, Illinois. She also has a part-time private music therapy practice called Music Therapy Connections. If you're looking for a music therapist and you live in or near Springfield, Illinois I would encourage you to explore her website and e-mail Rachel for more information.

Agenesis of the Corpus Callosum

When my son was diagnosed with Agenesis of the Corpus Callosum (ACC) he was a baby still in my arms...only four months old. He was diagnosed with ACC by a CT scan. Matthew is 15 years old now but I remember the day he was diagnosed with ACC very clearly. I wanted to know what it meant for my baby, how it would affect him, I wanted to get answers to all my questions and that just wasn't possible.

Agenesis of the Corpus Callosum has such a broad range of outcomes and each person with ACC can be affected differently. ACC can also be seen with a variety of other medical conditions such as genetic syndromes and chromosome anomalies.

When Matthew was four years old I created a website in the hopes that it may help other people more easily find information regarding ACC because when my own child was diagnosed there was relatively little, if any, tangible information to be had.

I was very lucky to have a wonderful pediatrician for Matthew. She copied the information she had about ACC from her medical book and handed it to us and then she made sure that Matthew saw all the necessary specialists that were needed. I am so thankful to Matthew's doctor for handling the entire situation and diagnosis in such a positive and professional manner.

Often times parents are given the diagnosis of ACC and then told horrible outcomes for their baby/child, given little or no hope, sent home to worry, wonder, wait and fear the worst. That just should not happen and I hope that more and more medical professionals will become better educated about Agenesis of the Corpus Callosum and other corpus callosum disorders and think before they attempt to speak the future of that little baby or child.

More information about ACC can be found at:

http://members.tripod.com/~scenicbeauty/AngelsAroundTheWorld.html