Resources & references

Charlotte Stewart, a board-certified music therapist, sings a hello song to a child during an individual music therapy session, helping the child develop their verbal communication skills through singing.

This book presents models of music therapy for families across diverse clinical settings, with international contributors sharing approaches and case studies that link theory to practice and address each model’s challenges and relevance.

Watch how music therapist Belinda Burns works with Hudson, a young boy with developmental delays. 

Read an article exploring the use and possibilities of music therapy for severely multiply-disabled individuals. A focus-group of music therapists who work with this population was convened, and the findings are compiled into three macro-areas: opportunities, music therapy approaches, and research challenges. 

This video features twin brothers diagnosed with autism and cerebral palsy who received individual music therapy sessions. Watch as they play instruments and sing to strengthen their communication, expression, and collaboration, and hear insights from their mother and music therapist in interviews.

This reference book examines how music therapy complements traditional treatments for active military service members, veterans, and their families affected by traumatic brain injury (TBI) and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), highlighting its benefits in individual and group sessions, and the potential of virtual settings.

This literature review examines music therapy treatment with active military service members and veterans. Common session formats and music experiences, the development of music therapy as a a profession, and gaps within the current body of research are discussed.

This fact sheet, developed by the American Music Therapy Association, describes how music therapy is effective in supporting military service members and veterans. It describes how active and receptive music experiences can address physical, cognitive, communication, social, and emotional goals.

This chapter of the book Music and War in the United States offers a definition of music therapy and a brief history of the music therapy profession. It incudes a detailed review of the long history of using music therapy within the American military.

Click here to view the full book.

Music therapy can uniquely help severely injured children and their families deal with the events surrounding an accident and its aftermath. The use of music therapy in treating these families on a pediatric service is described and illustrated with a fracture patient and a burn patient

Read an article exploring four case studies of music therapy with young children who had intellectual disabilities and complex needs. The music therapy sessions were compared to toy-play sessions, led by the same therapist, and results indicated that both conditions were similar in the quantity of communicative interactions, but that the music therapy communicative attempts displayed more interpersonal interactions.

Read an article exploring the effectiveness of a music therapy intervention on resilience in undergraduate university students. Results demonstrated a positive impact on resilience and affect, regardless of what year of study a student is in. Limitations and implications for future research are also discussed.