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Major breakthrough for special needs children
January 25, 2001A groundbreaking project pioneered by a University of Sunderland researcher is having an extraordinary effect on the lives of children with special needs.
Dr Phil Ellis, at the University’s school of arts, design and media, is working with youngsters from Davenport School in Houghton-le-Spring, with dramatic effect. He is using his sound therapy approach, together with technology called Soundbeam, which enables children with profound and multiple learning difficulties to express themselves and develop communication skills - very often for the first time.
Dr Ellis says: “I have seen extraordinary results at Davenport. It is highly motivating for them and means we have been able to reach out to children in a way that has not been done before. If you can see over time the children communicate and show pleasure through their own awareness then we are doing something worthwhile.”
Dr Ellis added: “Some of the children we have been working with have very limited movement and have never been able to control something before. The nature of the therapy means that all children can create sound and therefore they can be empowered and able to express themselves. Some of the results have been wonderful with significant improvements for the children involved and it has been a real joy and pleasure to see their responses.
“I have been developing this approach for more than nine years but since coming to the University of Sunderland it has become more finely tuned. It’s now much more focused and predictable and is having quite powerful results more quickly than in the past.”
Sound therapy has proved effective for children with epilepsy, cerebral palsy, visual and hearing impairments and can also be effective when used with children who are autistic. The approach also enables children to become deeply relaxed and can induce a feeling of well being.
Katy Atack, (ATACK) who teaches at Davenport School, says: “Sound therapy has opened up a creative world for our children where they have control – a control that in their normal everyday life is so often denied to them. We have already seen children become so fascinated and interested that muscular spasms become manageable. For some autistic children it is a key to unlock their prison and to enable them to experience communication.”
Dr Ellis says the potential of sound therapy could be huge and is not limited to children. He is currently piloting the approach with elderly patients who have suffered strokes, have depression or dementia. Again this is having dramatic effect, he says.
Funding for the CARESS initiative at Davenport school, which has been running since May last year, has come from Sunderland City Council’s education department, while cash for the elderly project was given by the Linbury Trust.
end
Media contact: Steve Heywood or Alison Steel in the University press office on 0191 515 2691/2099.
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