To Dream Out Loud

Parents, teachers and students delight in the happiness they see from the healing power of creative expression. Words by Laura Schober. Photography by Erinoak Kids

Ever since the day she was born, 11-year-old Brianna McGee has defied the odds and surpassed people’s expectations of what a child with Down syndrome can accomplish. Down syndrome is a condition in which a child is born with an extra chromosome that causes delays in physical and mental development, with symptoms that range from mild to severe.

Brianna was born six weeks early with heart failure, transient leukemia and a number of other severe health conditions. She was put on life support in hospital for the first few days of her life and underwent successful heart surgery at six weeks old. Today, Brianna suffers from hyperthyroidism and a ventricular septal defect (that is regularly monitored), but her parents say she is otherwise a healthy girl.

Since the age of three, Brianna has attended the ErinoakKids Centre for Treatment and Development in Mississauga. After years of therapy that included speech language and behavioural therapy, Brianna joined the Centre’s theatre arts group in the fall of 2008, and
later, the ErinoakKids Players group.

ErinoakKids is Ontario’s largest treatment centre, serving over 10,000 children and teens across centrewest Ontario who are facing a broad range of mental and physical challenges, ranging from Down syndrome, Autism, Celebral Palsy and other disabilities, to those who are blind, deaf or have suffered traumatic injury. Bibi and Chris McGee say the combination of drama classes and speech language therapy sessions have increased their daughter’s communication skills at every level. Brianna can now speak in longer sentences, while her fervent love for reading scripts and movie subtitles has helped improve her vocabulary and clarity of speech. Acting has helped their daughter become more comfortable with her classmates, allowing the once awkward young girl the chance to gain respect and recognition in something she excels at.

ErinoakKids drama teacher Danielle Strnad, 36, who is also founder of the DramaWay acting school in Mississauga, says the drama and music programs at ErinoakKids have a certain degree of inclusivity that more competitive recreational activities lack. She says there is a way to bring everyone into the arts, no matter if they are socially inhibited or wheelchair bound.

“They may not get into the volleyball or soccer team, but drama is an accessible activity that they can take part in and take ownership for.” The drama and music programs at ErinoakKids put on an annual production each year, in partnership with local secondary schools. The music that accompanies the annual drama production is created and recorded by the kids in the “Making the Music” class, taught by music therapist William Murray, 31. For older kids at ErinoakKids with no cognitive challenges, the class can be a chance for them to use music as a means to let out the problems and frustrations they encounter in their daily lives.

Murray says the music therapy program at ErinoakKids utilizes documentation and a scientific approach to therapy. The music helps with speech -as does acting out a script – and the range of emotions kids with special disabilities go through.

Mary King Lyons, Vice-President of Clinical Services at ErinoakKids, says that both the music and drama programs enhance the benefits gained from traditional therapies offered at the centre. “One young lad was keenly interested in music before he suffered a head injury,” she says. “The best motivator the physiotherapist found to help this boy do the tough work needed to regain physical range of motion was through adapted musical instruments.” The ErinoakKids switch guitar is an adapted musical instrument developed by Murray, occupational therapist Carl Bonura and technician Richard Tibay. Using a MIDI controller hooked up to a computer, the
switch guitar device is modelled after Guitar Hero, the hugely popular rock music video game where players use a game controller in the shape of a guitar to simulate different types of musical instruments.

Since 2007, Murray has overseen the formation of two bands founded by participants in the music therapy classes – rock outfit SUPERFIRE and more recently, the pop-inspired group Dawn of the Day. Yolanda and Angelo Esposito, the parents of Dawn of the Day band member, Matteo Esposito, have noticed a significant increase in their son’s confidence around others. Matteo, 13, was diagnosed with Persuasive Development Disorder – Not Otherwise Specified (PDDNOS), meaning he has a condition that exhibits only some, rather than all of the symptoms associated with Autism Spectrum Disorder. People with autism find it hard to express their emotions to other people and have trouble communicating and socializing properly with others. They also have a tendency to repeat specific patterns of behaviour or actions.

In Matteo’s case, he will dangle twist ties in front of his face at different times during the day. Called stimming, this is very hard for people with autism to control; it is done as a way for them to self-regulate their feelings so they can move onto the tasks they need to complete throughout the day. Matteo also has Tourette syndrome, a neurological disorder characterized by involuntary physical or verbal tics that occur repeatedly and compulsively. But when Matteo is engrossed in his music, Yolanda says her son’s ticks disappear. Despite Matteo’s tendency to ramble and shift focus at times during our conversation when he tells me about his passion for theatre and music, the teen is clearly articulate, ambitious and on the highfunctioning end of the autism spectrum.

Before her son began music therapy two years ago, Yolanda says Matteo found it hard to interact with other kids his own age. Now band practice is a highlight of Matteo’s week. “When you go, you make new friends, you get to joke around, you get to have fun,” he says with a big, bright smile. “I don’t need to be famous, like rock-band famous,” Matteo says. “But I want to work with
backstage musicals, like composing musicals and all of that.”