Can I Become a Music Teacher if I Have Special Needs?

“Can I become a music teacher if I have special needs?” Yes, but it doesn’t automatically mean you’ll know how to teach special need students.

We can’t cover all of the types of special needs in a blog post. However, you’ll usually work with students with ADD, LD (such as dyslexia), and autism.

When working with students with LD and ADHD:

1. Present information visually and concretely.
2. Color code the music (see the next section).
3. Do the Alignment Procedure from chapter 12 of The Gift of Learning. This stops the student from disorienting. For information on disorientation, click here.

When starting lessons with a student on the autistic spectrum, you’ll need to gather information:

• Many students on the spectrum will be verbal and do well with music.
• Teaching these students will be much like teaching a typical learner.
• However, the social aspects of the lessons may need some sensitivity.
• Other students will have difficulty communicating.
• With these students you’ll need to color code the score, and/or do hand-over-hand instruction.
• Between these extremes exists a range of learning styles.

Ask the parents what level of communication the student has when compared to a typical learner.

• Find out how good the student’s receptive language (the words the student can understand) is vs the expressive language (the words the student can speak).
• I’ve found that I can work with a student with limited expressive language if the receptive language is good.
• For example, if I ask a student to put his hands on the instrument, can he do it if I model it for him?
• If the receptive language is good, I can work with a student even if he can’t talk.

However, many students with ASD will communicate and follow directions just fine.