Providing an Inclusive Environment and Appropriate Instruction

in Early Childhood Music

Julie Derges Kastner

MichiganState University

In an early childhood music class, you may see children engaging in a wide variety of ways, including watching, moving their bodies, playing with props, and musically babbling in response to the songs and chants they hear.  However, you may not be able to discern whether any of these children have specific special needs that require sensitivity and modifications in your early childhood music teaching, particularly if a child’s special need is cognitive or behavioral rather than physical.  Frequently, young children are not given a specific label for their diagnosis, but are identified as having “developmental delays,”…