The History of Christmas Carols

  Listen to this amazing acapella version of Carol of the Bells by the chart-topping musical group, Pentatonix. Thousands of years ago pagan songs were sung at Winter Solstice celebrations in Europe. The Winter Solstice is the shortest day of the year, typically around December 22nd. This involved people dancing around stone circles because the word … Read more

New Studio Grand Opening

On Sunday, March 1st, Play Your Part, Inc.’s new studio opened with a bang! Over 60 people joined us in celebrating our new studio space in Mission Viejo. Check out our Facebook post for a glimpse into all the fun! Kids enjoyed checking out the new waiting room, bathroom and clinic space. Arts and crafts … Read more

Reflect(ions)

Today was my last day of teaching at OCSA for the semester. Parts of me were happy, parts of me were sad, but when the students led a few interventions for their final project…part of me felt anxious. Why…? I’m not sure…but as I reflect on my first semester (ever!) of teaching high schoolers, I … Read more

Protective Blend: Protecting Your Family

With the help of dōTERRA’s protective blend, ‘OnGuard’, my family and I have been all around healthier. OnGuard is a blend of essential oils, with the three main ingredients being clove, cinnamon and wild orange. Recently on the news/radio, I have been hearing all about the nutritional benefits of cinnamon. Who knew? Cinnamon and clove … Read more

Majoring in Music (dot) Com

I recently came across this great website. Great concept. Great articles. Why hadn’t I heard of it before? Check out MajoringInMusic.Com. And more specifically, check out Music Therapy for Children with Autism. This fall semester, I am teaching an Introduction to Music Therapy course at the Orange County School of the Arts. Most of my students … Read more

dōTERRA Essential Oils

Play Your Part, Inc. is incorporating educating and advocating about the use of essential oils into its practice. dōTERRA* is an international company which was started just over six years ago and is the leader in the essential oils market today. Their oils are the purest on the market and are marketed as CPTG – Certified … Read more

We’ve Moved!

Play Your Part’s office has moved from Irvine to Laguna Hills, CA. Thank you to all of the families who have made the move along with us! Our new office space provides an ample waiting area, private office, and a bigger and better music studio! Pictures to come once we are organized!

Autism Live Interview

Hey there again. This past Wednesday, April 9th, I had the wonderful opportunity to share the benefits of music therapy for those with Autism on the Autism Live show with Shannon and Nancy. They were so welcoming and made me feel very comfortable in my first ‘live’ interview! (excuse me while I scream in excitement!) … Read more

Autism Awareness Day

Join me today in celebrating Autism Awareness Day! Last week, new statistics were released about the prevalence of Autism in the United States. Every 1 in 68 children are diagnosed with Autism. Check out the article I published on Facebook by clicking here. I’m wearing blue in support of all the children and families affected … Read more

The Magical World of Disney and Autism

I came across this article on good ol’ Facebook. The title caught my eye and I knew I should take the time to read it. It is a brilliant narrative of a family struggling with a son with Autism. It touches on the set backs they face, the hours spent in therapy, the emotional toll it takes on the family as a whole; and yet, it so eloquently portrays the link between the music, the stories, the sidekicks, and the morals of the Walt Disney characters.

Here is a quote from the article:

“When Owen was 3, his comprehension of spoken words collapsed. That’s clear from every test. But now it seems that as he watched each Disney movie again and again, he was collecting and logging sounds and rhythms, multitrack. Speech, of course, has its own subtle musicality; most of us, focusing on the words and their meanings, don’t hear it. But that’s all he heard for years, words as intonation and cadence, their meanings inscrutable. It was like someone memorizing an Akira Kurosawa movie without knowing Japanese. Then it seems he was slowly learning Japanese — or, rather, spoken English — by using the exaggerated facial expressions of the animated characters, the situations they were in, the way they interacted to help define all those mysterious sounds. That’s what we start to assume; after all, that’s the way babies learn to speak. But this is slightly different because of the way he committed these vast swaths of source material, dozens of Disney movies, to memory. These are stored sounds we can now help him contextualize, with jumping, twirling, sweating, joyous expression, as we just managed with “The Jungle Book.””

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