Specializations

Hand Mobility Problems

Mobility problems can hinder guitar playing, but not necessarily. We have been successful in getting students with hand mobility problems to play songs through modified guitars and tunings.

Perhaps not playing on stage behind your back, with your teeth, or setting your guitar on fire, but you can plausibly be able to play at least some songs.

After all, that's the goal, and nothing feels better than accomplishing something you thought you could never do.

Students with Special Needs and Traumatic Brain Injuries

This is an area that needs to be approached carefully. Not just anyone can teach a special needs child. For one thing, special needs children are NOT one-size-fits-all students.

Unfortunately, some music stores do not realize that and can put these students in grave psychological danger.

The same applies to students with traumatic brain injuries.

Because of their simplicity and design, instruments like the ukulele can be invaluable learning tools for special needs children. This is especially true with an established program like Prisha Gustina's Steps to Music Literacy (stepstomusicliteracy.com).

We are not music therapists here at Rocker Doc Music Education, but Dr. Marionna is returning to school to become board-certified in music therapy. As we grow, we will hire board-certified music therapists as needed to our music educator ranks.

We work directly with students' therapists to achieve the best lesson and overall outcome for students with special needs.

Dr. Marionna is in the research stage of a secondary study on music as a second language for autistic children on levels two and three of the autism spectrum. Once funding is secured, these students will qualify for no-cost lessons.

An Important Note on our Philosophy on Students with Special Needs

Diagnostic labeling is a negative connotation that implies causation that implicates a person with a diagnosis, such as Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). For example, the head of a lessons program of a big-box music retail store brags to customers about the perceived “successful outcomes” of their lessons with autistic and special needs children. That is focusing on the disorder, not the child. And what qualifications do they have to make that statement?

Here at Rocker Doc Music Education, we only use the term "special needs child" in context. We do not teach "special needs children," as that falls into diagnostic labeling.

We teach children. Yes, children who happen to have special needs. They are children first; THEIR DIAGNOSIS DOES NOT DEFINE THEM.