The special education laws in the United States of America compared to Trinidad and Tobago revealed that such laws reflect the accommodations needed to help guide and improve students’ progress in the music classrooms. These laws accommodate special music educator’s appropriate plans to help teach music to the pupils with learning disabilities on a daily basis. Moreover, looking at the status of special education in Trinidad and Tobago, I realized that some appropriate policies are in place for children with learning disabilities, but not yet practice. There is no policy to provide support for classroom accommodations and academic plans to assist students with learning disabilities in the music classroom.
Through the Literature reviewed, I discovered a number of ways to teach children with learning disabilities from a number of known and experienced special music educators and authors. They highlighted effective teaching strategies, techniques, innovative approaches and methods for teaching students with learning disabilities in vocal and instrumental, music literacy “Receptive and Expressive Language”, with music and reading, to improve math scores with music, to have a positive impact on behavior, to help with auditory processing problems and to assist with “perceptual-motor development through rhythm and motor activities” (Colwell, p. 11) through the teaching of music. All these authors have highlighted some of the content that has been written on how to teach music to children with learning disabilities, which can help improve my skill for students in Trinidad and Tobago
Reference:
Colwell, M. C. (2002, November). Learning Disabilities in the Music Classroom: Implications for the Music Educator. Retrieved from http://upd.sagepub.com/content/21/2/9.full.pdf+html