Conference Report

I recently wrote a report on my the Northeast Music Cognition Group Meeting held at Boston University on November 17, 2012.  The report has been posted on the Music Therapy Research Blog "bringing current research to music therapy clinicians". 

Here is the link to the report:  http://www.musictherapyresearchblog.com/?p=1399

AMTA and NEMCOG (applied science and research)

I recently presented my research on Musical Echolalia and Non-Verbal Children with Autism at two different venues.  On October 13, 2012 I presented a poster of my topic at the American Music Therapy Association National (AMTA) Conference in St. Charles, Illinois.  On November 17, 2012 I presented an eight-minute talk of the same topic at the North East Music Cognition Group (NEMCOG) at Boston University in Boston, Massachusetts.  Just to note, I am writing a guest article on the NEMCOG meeting for the “Music Therapy Research Blog,” and will provide a link to my article here once it is published.

            While I presented the same topic at each venue, the remarks and inquires I received from the conference attendees were both divergent and unique.  It was interesting for me to reflect upon the two experiences and realize the different lenses in which researchers at NEMCOG and clinicians at the AMTA conference viewed the research.  Attendees of the AMTA conference is mainly comprised of music therapy professionals and students while the NEMCOG meeting is primarily researchers.  Personally, I consider myself as a researcher and clinician with greater depth of history as a clinician. 

            The main differences that I noticed among the comments from music therapists  at the AMTA conference were that they hoped to see stronger clinical outcomes in my current research.  I explained that my initial findings were lead to the need for a protocol that tests the clinical implications of musical echolalia.  While I explained that my findings indicated social outcomes the music therapists wanted to see how the findings could be used in a traditional clinical setting. 

            On the other side of the coin, the researchers at the NEMCOG meeting commented positively at the novelty of my findings and said that the outcomes spoke clearly to the uniqueness of imitation and music among children with autism, and in a way presented a strong case against the mirror neuron theory.  Many of the comments of the researchers were steeped in topic specific answers and related to the current findings in the field.   The questions that the researchers asked me were specific in their relation to the definition of imitation and how I defined it specific to my work.

            It seemed that the main differences among the response of my two presentations were that the music therapists were looking for more clinical depth and had a canvas of questions related to the breadth of the work, while the researchers at NEMCOG were impressed with the novel findings and asked questions that were very scientific in nature.  Philosophically speaking, these questions presented at the two meetings could all be the same with just a different dialect to express the inquiry.  In a way I believe that music therapists are researchers, while researches also delve into applied work; ultimately, I believe there is a common mission between the two roles.   One common thread between both meetings asked when and where the work would be published.  I am glad that this question was raised because it encourages me to move forward and produce this work more widely to the public.