How You Can Use Music and Humor to Motivate a Child with Special Needs

This music therapy video with a child with Down syndrome illustrates the following:

• Children with Down syndrome and other special needs are motivated by humor!

• You can use dramatic, funny reactions to inspire a child to learn, develop and practice skills.

• Academic goals, fine motor skills, gross motor skills, communication skills, etc. can all be learned through humorous activities.

• Use a funny, frustrated reaction to make a child laugh.

• Act very surprised or confused in response to a desired action that a child performs.

• If you can tap into what makes a child laugh, you have struck gold!