by Phoebe Howell

Created on: November 22, 2009

Given today's diverse and often challenging classroom environment, teachers are employing a vast array of techniques in order to maximize their students learning capabilities. Art and music studies have long been incorporated into a basic student curriculum because of their importance in skills development. Holding a crayon or paintbrush works wonders for a younger child's fine motor skills, lending toward other more mundane tasks such as tying shoes or writing sentences. Musical instruments promote hand eye coordination development that aids in sports as well as honing a child's reflexes.

But what about using art and music education as a healing tool for children that have been touched by trauma? More and more, today's children are facing challenges at home and in society that leaves lasting marks on their developmental psyche. An estimated 794,000 children across the country were victims of abuse or neglect in 2007, according to national data released in 2009 by the Children's Bureau of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Unlike in the past, awareness of the problem is no longer an issue. Teachers are usually the first people to notice when a student begins exhibiting signs of trauma and they are often a child's first choice when deciding who to trust. However, getting the child to open up about his/her life is often far more difficult. It is because of this, through the use of familiar and often comforting concepts, that the study of art and music can become a therapeutic tool.

Nearly everyone can benefit from visual expression and learning. Often, it is quite complicated for children with limited vocabularies to find words to express what they are feeling or describe what they have been through. Also, children struggle with feelings of inadequacy and embarrassment about the events in their lives. Art encourages free expression and communication by allowing children to speak in a language that needs no words. This type of therapy is used to stimulate the imagination and abstract thinking and allowing reflective self-expression through drawing, painting or sculpting, which leads children into new ways of seeing themselves. Art becomes the vehicle for the expression of the hidden self, developing relationships with others, as well as for integrating experiences that may be difficult for them to explain or understand while building a sense of confidence and achievement.

Through these discoveries, teachers and therapists have a way of relating

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