Abstract

Using evidence-based practices (EBPs) in the education of students with special needs is the law. The recent Supreme Court decision in Endrew F. v. Douglas County School District RE-1 (2017) raised the bar for students with special needs to make progress and raised the bar for educators to make that happen. Music therapy program evaluation depends on students making progress with music therapy interventions more than ever before. Music therapists in the special education setting must keep up with the current research on EBPs in the non-music and music therapy setting in order to create effective music therapy interventions that give students, music therapy, and school districts the best bang for their buck. In this training, music therapists will review the background on evidence-based practice in special education and music therapy and discuss the latest research on EBPs for a variety of diagnoses, including but not limited to autism, intellectual disability (including severe), emotional disturbance, and traumatic brain injury. EBPs for social skills, communication, reading, and math will also be reviewed for various populations. This course is intended to be utilized within current practice. Therefore, participants are asked to use a case example with at least one IEP goal they would like to learn EBPs for in order to create an evidence-based music therapy treatment intervention. An EBP resource and music therapy treatment plan will be used to complete the case example that culminates in an evidence-based music therapy intervention that can be used immediately. Case examples will be compiled in a Google Doc for participants to share.