#amta2018

My name is Heidi Tulcan, and I am a music therapy intern at Therapeutic Arts Program (TAP II) located in Gardena, California. I recently finished my coursework for my bachelor's degree in Music Therapy from California State University Northridge. When looking for an internship site, I knew immediately that I wanted to work with adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Able Arts Work is a company that I had been familiarized with prior to applying for this internship. I had opportunities to volunteer at various centers throughout my schooling, and even spent one semester of my practicum at the center in Long Beach. During that semester, I began to realize my passion for this population.

Walking in on my first day at TAP II was slightly overwhelming. There were so many new people to meet and quite a bit of information for me to process. I spent the day following my supervisor and learning all that I could about each artist we would interact with. I came home after my first day feeling tired from processing all my new information, but excited to come back the next day and learn even more about each artist and how the program functioned.

I began my journey by slowly assisting in sessions. I was first tasked with leading the group in a hello song to begin the sessions, and a goodbye song to close them. I began to gain confidence in my role as a music therapy intern and took on larger portions of the sessions. This began with me leading a few music therapy interventions on my own and later became me leading entire sessions with my internship supervisor observing and assisting when necessary.

One thing that inspired me during my time at TAP II so far has been the idea of verbalization as a form of communication. There is a huge variety of ways that artists here communicate, but many have the ability to vocalize. When I noticed this, I began to search through the music therapy literature and research what has been done in terms of using music therapy interventions to increase verbalizations. I found an incredible amount of resources and used this knowledge to write up session plans for a group focused on verbalization and meaningful social interaction. I began to lead my own sessions for about an hour each Friday afternoon. This group has a wide variety of verbalization abilities, but quite a bit of potential for growth to express themselves and communicate in this way. As of now, each group member participates in the sessions and have been very responsive to the methods that I have been using.

My next project is a 12-week case study on the effects of music therapy in increasing meaningful verbalization skills. After beginning my group sessions, I decided that this was an area of music therapy that I was passionate about and wanted more experience in a dyadic setting. This is what I expect to be my most challenging portion of the internship. I am excited to finish up my study design and begin implementing it.

I am not even halfway through my internship yet and I already feel as though I have experienced so much growth in my skills as a therapist, musician, and human. I cannot wait to continue the rest of my time at TAP II spending each day surrounded by such loving people and sharing music together.