Episode Summary
Four ways to motivate students with ASD and ADHD in music lessons.
Guest Host
With a BM in Piano Pedagogy and seven years of teaching experience, Abigail runs a private studio near Dallas, Texas. She specializes in preschool and neurodivergent students, using a play-based approach for classical piano lessons.
In 2021, Abigail launched Whole Foundation Method: an online shop with fun and comprehensive tools for beginner-intermediate piano students. She loves learning, teaching, and equipping teachers with helpful resources!
Items Mentioned
ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder) and ADHD (Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder) are both Neurodevelopmental conditions.
ASD
Thrives in routines; struggle with interpersonal relationship due to a lack of social skills
Ways to keep students with ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder) motivated in their lessons.
- Providing students with autism with structure and choices (visual task cards mat)
- Use screens and technology
- Hands-on, tactile learning (motions, movement, call & response singing, etc.)
- Use easy repertoire that can be taught by rote in the early days of lessons (first 6-12 months of lessons) to help them feel capable
ADHD
Tend to be disinterested in routines; the struggle is with attentiveness
Ways to keep students with ADHD motivated in their lessons.
Transcript
Amy: I’m Amy Chaplin, and this is the Piano Pantry Podcast. My apologies up front for my voice not being tip-top. Luckily, though, today is the first guest host episode of 2023. I’ve been following Abigail Prophet on Instagram for a while now, and enjoy seeing all she does with her students and resources she’s creating for teachers.
I especially love it when my guest hosts propose topics I might not be inclined to talk about, so I was especially thrilled when Abigail wanted to cover motivating students with ASD and ADHD. With a Bachelor of Music and Piano Performance and 7 years of teaching experience, Abigail runs a private studio near Dallas, Texas.
She specializes in preschool and neurodivergent students using a play based approach for classical piano lessons. In 2021, Abigail launched Whole Foundation Method, an online shop with fun and comprehensive tools for beginner and. Intermediate piano students. She loves learning, teaching, and equipping teachers with helpful resources.
Today’s show notes include all of Abigail’s tips, so you don’t have to worry about writing them down yourself. I’ll turn you over to her shortly, but first…
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Right before the hour is up, we unmute and share our accomplishments. Currently, I’m holding these the first Wednesday of every month from 12 to 1 p. m. Eastern Time. Find the link in the show notes to sign up, and be prepared to get things done!
Abigail: Hi, Piano Teacher friends! I’m Abigail, and I’m so grateful to Amy for inviting me onto the podcast today. If you know me through Facebook or Instagram, I specialize in teaching classical piano to Neurodivergent and preschool students, but I don’t often address the neurodivergent side. So I’m excited to Just talk to you about how to keep students with Autism Spectrum Disorder and ADHD specifically motivated and excited about their piano lessons.
Just a quick overview of what Autism and ADHD look like. They are both neurodevelopmental conditions, which means the central nervous system is affected by Autism and ADHD. The central nervous system regulates attention and memory, social skills, language development, and all those things that we really take for granted.
I personally have ADHD, so I really resonate and empathize with students who have this neurodivergent condition. But I also have worked with students who have autism for the past three or four years. Some ways they are different is that kids with autism really thrive on routines and kids with ADHD have pretty much across the board a disinterest in routines.
Autistic kids also struggle with interpersonal relationships due to a lack of social skills, while ADHD kids might struggle because they just have a lack of attention or attentiveness to other people. I really love working with these types of kids and these students because they are just such a joy to me and they have so much brilliance to bring to the table, to the studio.
They are so creative and so full of life and they just see the world through a totally different lens and I love that. So, hopefully, I can share a little bit of my heart with that as I’m showing you some ways to keep them motivated. With students who have autism, there are four things that I have found are really helpful for just maintaining a well balanced lesson and keeping them motivated in their repertoire and their music learning.
The first principle that is really key is providing students who have autism with structure and choices. So this gives autistic students a sense of security and alleviates anxiety because that can be a really high tendency for these kids. So one thing I do is I use an activity mat that has six squares on it, and about a dozen picture cards to choose from.
Like a couple cards have photos of my students books, another card has a piano for improv activities, another card has an iPad that represents boom cards, or ear training on the iPad another card has a puzzle that represents theory games, and, the list goes on. I will lay those cards in front of my students and allow them to pick what activity they want to work on.
And they can choose up to six to fill up all the squares on the mat. So they love the predictability of this activity mat and I love that my students can receive a structured piano lesson that they really enjoy this way. An added bonus with this is that the pictures on these activity cards are really helpful for non speaking kids.
So as Or maybe you don’t know. I’m telling you. Autism is a spectrum. So, there are some kids who may be closer to the nonverbal side. They don’t speak as much or at all. And then some kids are, quote, highly functioning, which just means they interact with you a lot more through words and language, and they converse a little bit more than others.
Another tool that is really helpful is using screens and technology. I really am pretty anti screens in the piano studio, but with autistic kids this is actually important because it takes away the pressure for them to make eye contact and have to engage too much socially because this can actually trigger a lot of anxiety for them which will hinder their Learning experience.
So giving some screen time gives them a sense of control and more time. To process new concepts. Plus a lot of autistic kids use digital devices for communication, stimulation, and education on a regular basis. So bringing a screen to the studio gives them a sense of familiarity, which will actually.
Boost their learning and their engagement with you. Another tool that’s really important is hands on learning. So using motions to reinforce concepts movement scarves or rhythm sticks when you’re listening. Not only do they love this hands on tactile learning, but it actually gives you a way to gauge how well they are listening and engaging with an aural activity or rhythm flashcards or whatever you’re doing in front of you.
Call and response singing is also a really great way to interact with them, provide hands-on learning, because not only are you encouraging language development and social skills through this, but as singing is a great way to build aural skills, pitch recognition, sight playing, sight singing, it’s just really helpful all around, musically and developmentally.
Now, here’s the big kicker, and this is a huge difference between students with autism and ADHD. It is really important to use Easy Repertoire and Repertoire that can be taught by Rote. Again, Autism is a spectrum and kids, whether they have Autism or not, have a very vast array of interests and strengths.
What works with one student who has Autism may not work for another. But, I’ve found that using Easy Repertoire, at least in the first 6-12 months, really boosts their confidence and helps them feel like they can practice on their own at home. Because if these students do not feel capable, they will get really frustrated if it feels too hard, and they will start associating piano with stress or something that really rubs them the wrong way.
Building their confidence through easy repertoire will build that intrinsic motivation that you want. You’re not going to have to bribe them into practicing or into playing something for you. If you choose to combine rote repertoire with that, this is a great way to build aural skills.
And often, students with Autism Spectrum Disorder have a really excellent ear, and they pick up on rote music really easily. So this also makes them feel confident because they’re using their own natural abilities at the piano.
That’s ASD; now let’s look at some ways to keep students with ADHD focused and motivated in their lessons. When you think of ADHD, a few words that come to mind might be hyper, or inattentive, forgetful, chatty. And ADHD is also a spectrum; there’s actually three types of it. But for the purpose of this episode, I’ll just be talking about the hyper and inattentive side.
So, just like students with autism, providing choices is very important, but you want to give short-term choices to hold your student’s attention. So, for example, would you like to start with scales or a theory game and then just follow the immediate choice at hand? Giving them a structured task mat could also work, but that might not get you the best result because They might just be too anxious to get to the next thing on the mat and not actually focus on what’s right in front of them.
You will also want to change up activities very frequently. I know many teachers get really frustrated with students who have high energy because they can’t keep them on the bench. But guess what? It is totally okay to let them off the bench. So here’s what a typical lesson looks like with my ADHD students.
We will spend two to three minutes on the floor playing a theory game or working on rhythm, using rhythm sticks. Just to pull the students into the zone because it takes them a while to walk in and really regulate their energy and emotions and attention, so I might do a theory game on the floor or do a game that really gets their energy out.
So, for example, I will put some landmark flashcards on the piano and have my student stand at the other side of the room, run to the piano, play what’s on the flashcard, and then run back to the other side of the room. And this is a really great way to just get all those jitters out before we sit down at the piano.
Next, we will spend 10 to 12 minutes at the piano, maybe 15 to 20 on a good day. But just reviewing repertoire, learning new repertoire, and then we will maybe. If they are really having a high-energy day, spend three to five more minutes on a worksheet, or listening activity, or another game. And then I like to wind down with sight playing.
So I’ll come back to this point in a second. Here’s what I mentioned earlier: with autism, there is a big contrast between ASD and ADHD. While students with autism will really thrive and be intrinsically motivated through easy repertoire ADHD students, I’ve noticed, at least in my studio, do really well with hard repertoire.
And here’s why. Students or kids with ADHD get bored really easily. So the reason they’re fidgeting or getting impatient might be because they’re actually just extremely intelligent and they’re really bored of the method book in front of them. So they thrive on challenges, and you might actually find that they’re more attentive to details in a difficult piece than they are with the page in their book.
So it’s really important to give them a challenge piece where they are motivated to sit down for long periods of time and tackle that challenge at hand, but as sight reading is also really important for building new skills and concepts. I like to use sight reading as a warmup activity or something to wind down at the end of the lesson.
I do want to say I’m not saying that students with autism cannot play hard rep. That is not what I mean at all. But in those early lessons, again, like the first 6 to 12 months, to build intrinsic motivation and confidence, it’s really helpful to just give easy, manageable goals. And this is true across the board.
You want both students at the end of the day just to feel very capable, and like they can do this at home. And if they feel capable, they will be having fun. And they will be motivated. So I know that was a lot, but I hope this was helpful, I hope maybe if you’re driving or something right now you can go back home and play this episode again and write down some of these points, but that’s just been based on my experience with my own ADHD and my sweet students who have ADHD and autism spectrum disorder, and I hope it enhances your teaching.
Amy: Today’s tiny tip is inspired by the hoarse voice you hear today. Anytime throat troubles hit, throat coat tea is a huge help. By the way, this is not a paid ad. Just a tip on something I love that I think you would also benefit from knowing about. There are a variety of throat coat tea brands, but the one that I get in my local grocer is by Traditional Medicinals brand.
I will post a link for you in the show notes. Have a great week guys!
