How the Arts Build Skills and Bring Joy

As the summer vacation season comes to an end, many parents have begun making plans for their children’s fall schedules. If your child has special needs, his schedule may be full of therapy appointments, doctor’s visits and tutoring sessions. Though it may be challenging to find time for other extracurricular activities, making space for the creative arts is well worth it. Participation in arts programming can increase children’s self-esteem, improve cognitive, motor and social skills and provides a sense of community that is sometimes hard to find in mainstream school settings. Fortunately, more and more arts education programs across the country are offering classes for children with special needs.

In today’s post, Enabling Devices looks at the benefits of creative arts experiences for children with special needs.

Theater for children with autism spectrum disorders

In recent years, educators and parents across the country have come to recognize that participation in the theater arts are extremely beneficial to children on the autism spectrum.

In a 2016 study, Vanderbilt University professor Blythe Corbett demonstrated how children enrolled in her 10-session, 40-hour program, SENSE Theater were less anxious, more likely to recognize faces, and more capable of understanding different points of view. According to an article by Laura McKenna in The Atlantic, “kids who completed the program had brain-frequency levels that were more similar to children without autism.”

Dance for children with physical disabilities

Mobility challenges needn’t be a deterrent to dancing. Even children who use wheelchairs can enjoy the many benefits of dance classes. According to Strictly Wheels, a UK-based organization that promotes wheelchair dance and runs wheelchair dance classes, these benefits include “Improving fitness and ability through exercise and dance; Boosting self-confidence and self-esteem through participation; Reducing social isolation through inclusion; Increasing personal independence through better ability to use a wheelchair.”

Music for the visually impaired

Research has shown that people who are blind, especially those who have been blind from an early age, are more likely [than those who are sighted] to have absolute or perfect pitch.

“Blind children's brains undergo radical changes in order to make better use of the sensory inputs they can gather,” says Mic writer Tom Barnes. “Numerous fMRI and lesion studies suggest that individuals blind since childhood repurpose large portions of their visual cortex in order to respond better to auditory stimuli,” writes Barnes. “The younger children are when they lose their sight, the more powerful their auditory cortex can be, thanks to increased neural plasticity in place during infancy/early childhood/young childhood.”

Visual art for children with a variety of special needs

Making art is a wonderful means of creative expression for all children, but for children with disabilities, its benefits can be even greater. Not only does art increase children’s fine motor and cognitive skills, it offers enjoyable and therapeutic multisensory experiences—think finger painting or ceramics. If your child is unable to use her hands to create art, she may be able to hold a paintbrush with her mouth or foot. If that seems far-fetched, just check out the Association of Foot and Mouth Painting Artists website. In fact, writes Nancy Bailey for the online publication, Living in Dialogue, “Even the most severely disabled student can, through their senses, appreciate the joy of the arts.”