Music Helps Autism

Denie Riggs has written Music Helps Autism after teaching piano for nearly 50 years, as well as creating Early Childhood Music®~Give Them the Best Start, a faith-based, non-traditional approach to preschool piano, and Music4Me, a music program designed specifically for children with special needs. Riggs has successfully taught many students with special needs, including those with autism, with astounding musical and non-musical results. Several of her students have broken through into language in her classes, others have gained amazing academic results, excelling in every area of their life. Exciting Share Their Story parent testimony segments in the book will excite and amaze you. In an Appendix for Teachers, Riggs shares her non-traditional musical techniques, tips and ideas to encourage parents, teachers and other professionals to transform the lives of those around you. Music Helps Autism is a step-by-step guide that is easy to read, understand and follow. Your hope will be reborn as Music Helps Autism gives you tools to begin to apply the incredible power of music to your child’s life with a multifaceted approach that works.

Denie Riggs has written Music Helps Autism after teaching piano for nearly 50 years, as well as creating Early Childhood Music®~Give Them the Best Start, a faith-based, non-traditional approach to preschool piano, and Music4Me, a music program designed specifically for children with special needs. Riggs has successfully taught many students with special needs, including those with autism, with astounding musical and non-musical results. Several of her students have broken through into language in her music classes, others have gained amazing academic results, excelling in every area of their life. The book, Music Helps Autism, contains 6 vital elements. Share Their Story! Riggs shares powerful Share Their Story! testimony segments throughout the book written by those who have witnessed first hand Riggs' non-traditional approach to music. Riggs understands that powerful strength is gained from the words of a parent of a child with autism, whose life has been changed and these Share Their Story testimonies will excite and encourage you that music can help your child too! The Incredible Music Research: You will never look at music the same way again after Riggs shares the powerful music research behind her program. She documents her studies in a way that you can do your own research also. The Four Levels of Active Musical Participation: Riggs lays out for the reader the Four Levels of Musical Therapies that she recommends for every person, not only those on the autism spectrum. Practical Application: Riggs gives age-specific tips and application ideas on how to apply the Four Levels of Musical Therapies to bring benefits for every age and every level of developmental abilities. Resources: Riggs has done the work for you and provides guidance on where to get non-traditional curriculums, instruments that are approved for your child’s developmental age, what to look for in listening CDs, how to find music schools in your area … and much, much more. This book is a practical guide to resource the tools to help your child excel. Appendix for Teachers: Although Music Helps Autism is written specifically for parents, Riggs shares her vital elements and techniques for music teachers, therapists and other interested professionals. Her goal is that no matter where a child resides in the world, they can have someone in that location, trained to help release them from the symptoms of autism. Music Helps Autism is easy to read, understand and follow. Your hope will be reborn as you begin to apply the incredible power of music to your child’s life with a multifaceted approach that works.

Denie Riggs wrote Music Helps Autism after teaching piano for 50 years. Riggs played Jesus Loves the Little Children by ear at the piano at age 3 years. She has been playing music since then, served as church musician for most of her life and celebrates 50 years of teaching piano in the fall of 2013. Denie, and her husband Michael, oversee a corporation named Perfect Praise, Inc., founded in 1996 (under another name). Their corporate name was taken from Psalm 8:2 which Jesus quoted in Matthew 21:16. “… Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings Thou has perfected praise”. They feel their calling is to raise up generations of worshipping musicians who will change their world because of the amazing power of music. Under the Perfect Praise, Inc corporate umbrella, Riggs began writing the Early Childhood Music® ~ Give Them the Best Start a non- traditional, piano-based music curriculum in 1998 based on the then-new music research regarding the benefit of piano for 3-year-olds. Over the next decade, God gave her wisdom beyond herself to write and teach this successful, preschool curriculum to children from prenatal to age 8 years. That curriculum is being studied by children all around the world in licensed ECM curriculum schools. Riggs has successfully taught traditional piano to children and adults with special needs her entire life, including students who are blind and those with severe mental and physical handicaps. She saw that children with autism, who enrolled locally, flourished with her non-traditional approach to the piano. So in 2009, with the guidance of a local autism specialist, she formed a class for just for children with special needs called Music4Me. The results were incredible as you will read in her book. Autism Awareness Month, April 2012, while everyone was focusing on therapies to help treat autism, Riggs realized that she had to share the successes that her students have been experiencing by writing the book, Music Helps Autism. Riggs is a traditionally trained piano teacher; she is not a music therapist, nor is she an autism specialist. Music Helps Autism shares her 50 years of teaching experience and her non-traditional approach, for others to apply into the lives of those who need it the most. The Rigges administrate their local Early Childhood Music® ~ Give Them the Best Start school in Huntsville AL USA affecting nearly 300 students weekly. They’ reside in Huntsville, Alabama, where they have five children and six grandchildren.