Modern Nordoff/Robbins (Nordoff &Robbins, 1977) improvised music therapy has its origins in working with handi-capped children. However, while there is awealth of case study material in the music therapy literature concerning music therapy with children, there has been no controlled study of Nordoff/Robbins music therapy withhandicapped children. A “cross-over” design isused here to investigate music therapy as a Treatment for developmentally delayed children. An important feature of childhood development is the acquisition of speech and theability to communicate meaningfully with an-other person. Music therapy encourages children without language to communicate and has developed a significant place in the treatment of mental handicap in children. How such communication is achieved, and how in some instances it leads to speech, is as yet unknown. Indeed, the very ability to develop and achieve speech in normal children is a miracle of daily living which continues to baffle both linguists and psychologists. While this paper makes no attempt to solve the riddle of how speech is brought about, we will attempt to demonstrate how music therapy helps the developmentally-challenged child progress towards a richer communicative life.

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