Victoria is a 9 year-old girl who loves music and singing along with her favorite pop songs. She was here at UCLA Mattel Children’s Hospital receiving treatment for intestinal failure and other neighboring diagnosis, and a primary care goal of hers during her stay at the hospital was speech production. Victoria had been followed by Speech Therapy and considering her love for music, it seemed only natural to combine forces and co-treat with Music Therapy by using her preferred music as motivation for attaining her speech therapy goals.
In this video, Victoria can be observed making mouth movements, producing breath, expressing verbal autonomy, imitating vowel sounds, and singing along to her favorite songs. Music Therapy intern, Shelby Marnett, works with speech therapist, Holly Selepec, on personalized and evidenced based clinical musical interventions specifically catered to Victoria's care goals. While Music Therapy constructed the patient-specific musical interventions, Speech Therapy provided emotional support, encouragement, and a clear outline of the goals to be reached. Victoria had also been working with Shelby previously on her fine motor skills through playing maracas and shakers during interventions. We are incredibly proud of her for working so hard!
