Hi! I'm brand new to this forum. My question is this - how do I start teaching my 4 yo autistic grandson (whom I've raised since birth) to try and play? He is extremely interested. I bought a book "Teaching Little Fingers to Play" by Thompson. He is verbal, but consistently moving. Should I label the keys with my label machine so he can start to learn the first 5 fingers and keys (c-g)? Thank you for any information. If I am on the wrong board, please tell me where I should be posting. I look forward to reading and/or posting but for now will just read. The topics are fascinating! I posted this on another forum and it was suggested to post this here.

Hi,
I'd recommend not labelling the keys but having a picture of the keys with their letter names corresponding the the notes on the staff, which can sit on the piano until he learns the notes, and can then be taken away. Don't have too many notes there so he doesn't get confused.
I would start very very simple, e.g. just with middle C until he learns where C is and can play with confidence using good hand position etc. Only move on once the first note is mastered.
At my piano school we teach middle C to G in treble before going to bass but I have had some problems with this. Children get confused when what they knew as C is now something different in a different clef. I'm not sure how to overcome this though.
Also try getting him to play notes loud and soft right from the beginning- children tend to enjoy this and it instils in him the idea that music is performance- not just about the right keys.
Good luck!

I teach a blind woman and an ADD child. .. and am not really qualified to teach either. however, i have looked for their talents, what they know how to do without much thought. My ADD kid can memorize and play by ear and really has trouble reading notation. I patiently go through the scales, chords and arppegios, key by key, hoping to give her a sense of the spacial order of each key.. i teach her pieces by showing her how to play them.. she remembers.

My blind woman also relies on her memory and tho she has braille music, has trouble playing it as written.. she uses the music as a way to find her mistakes. I've made up fingering exercises akin to arppegio and scales fingering. I've taught her more theory so she can figure out herself what chords are coming next. i patiently show her how to create accompaniment to melodies that she rigorously memorizes.

somehow both of them are learning in spite of me. i don't suggest you incorporate my nebulous suggestions, but just be open minded to what the student will learn with his own capabilities and not be married to traditional teaching methods.

As he is your grandson and you have raised him from birth you are in the best position to know what he is capable of. I don't teach piano to kids under the age of 6 because they find it frustrating and often have yet to develop the fine motor skills required. For the younger ones I run group musicianship classes instead.

That doesn't mean you shouldn't give it a go. If he lives with you then you can work with him for short periods of time every day. His attention span might be short so practice in blocks of 10-15 mins only.

The great thing about teaching children with autism is that they love patterns and repetition. This means they are usually happy to keep playing the same things over and over. We all know how important that can be. I would avoid getting locked into that 5 finger position. Show him the repeated pattern of black keys over the whole piano. Then show how there are only seven different white keys until you get back to the same one again. Maybe try teaching him some very simple tunes by ear and let him experiment by playing it in different octaves. Vary the activities as well. You might let him move to music and play percussion instruments to develop muscle control and sense of rhythm. It must be fun because keeping that enthusiasm will be key.

Like I said, 4 year olds are not my strong point so hopefully others can give more advice.

I have had only one student who is autistic, but I deal with autistic kids on a regular basis in the public school setting. In my experience, I've found that, while autistic children are lacking in one area, they are more than proficient in another. My autistic student can't sit for 30 minutes, so I divided his lesson into 10-minute intervals, and we did different things every ten minutes. He had a keen sense of hearing, so I always assigned music that had a CD (Hal Leonard, Piano Adventures). He progressed really fast through the Goldstar Adventures series because of the CD, but his note-reading skills fell drastically behind.

You might, for your grandson, find something he could focus on, so he won't be distracted easily. Try and see if he likes to listen to CD's. Be creative, and don't expect everything to fall in place.

navywave1965,

Are you a piano player who reads music or do you sing? Play another instrument? How does music get heard in your home right now? Does this little guy dance around the house? What have you noticed about him that shows he might be ready for structured lessons.

I think it is much better to wait until kids can write and print their name and the numbers 1 - 10 on a blank piece of paper. Can he draw a straight line? Draw a musical staff? Make a circle so a note could fit on a line of the staff, or on a space?

A lot of time at the keyboard looking at the graphics of it, and learning to work with finding octaves of the same note.

Singing children's song together, clapping steady beats.

Outlining his hands/labeling LH and RH/thumbs are number 1, number the other finger numbers.
Can he do this work and make logic out of the hands being LH and RH and can press the finger asked for?

I'm suggesting that you identify his capacity to respond to what you will be teaching. Not just the notes on the page, and playing piano keys, but finding and responding from within himself.

Imitating and parroting is not truly piano teaching. There may be a better time in the future to start piano - maturity is a factor to progress.

Are you are prepared as you might be ahead of time, or will you be learning the information in the book yourself as you are teaching?

Betty

Thank you all for your wonderful replies! I play piano (reading) and sing as well. We sing or play CDs all day. He is the one going to the piano and says he wants to "make music." This is what gave me the idea to see if I could get him started. He does have a small attention span. At preschool they are teaching rhythm patterns and he comes home and tells and shows me about them. He has always liked music. From the day he came home from the hospital, I would sing to him and he would just stare deep into my eyes and listen. He won't (can't?) go to sleep without music playing. He'll wake up during the night crying and ask for the music to be turned on.

Thank you for all the great suggestions. I felt that by my putting letters on the keys could help him, but am afraid he would become dependent upon that method.

He can print his name barely, can draw a line and a circle, but no way a treble clef.

Numbering his fingers and hand (L/R) is a great idea. I'll be using the book I guess, but thought I should start out with just the first five fingers and notes on the right hand. When mastered, do the left hand. Then again, maybe I should wait a little longer.

Again, thank you and enjoy reading all these different posts on different subjects.