“An individual will always integrate new information and skills when there is inner motivation and curiosity.  Music can be the built in reward.”

Esther Thane, BMT, MTA, AVPT |  Creator of MITM

 

What is Meet In The Music (MITM)?


Meet In The Music© is a curriculum and a music therapy goal bank with a broad range of options that will allow you to instantly professionalize your music therapy practice.

MITM is easy to implement and includes all of the major components required for a modern practice. It has built-in program templates (music therapy interventions: both improvisation based and structured) for programming individual learners. Both Qualitative and Quantitative data can be collected for analysis.  Treatment plans can be created from program templates, tailored to each client’s ability level and designed to utilize personal strengths, motivations, and interests.

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Meet In The Music© (MITM) is a music therapy curriculum for autism and special needs that includes original interventions and songs and a goal bank. It includes customizable program templates, downloadable sheet music, video demonstrations, picture manipulatives and a wide scope and sequence of skill sets across many domains.

Program content includes:

  • Music Therapy Goal Bank

  • New interventions and songs

  • Parent programs

  • New training videos category

  • Telehealth tag & considerations for applicable interventions

  • New telehealth interventions

  • Videos

  • Sheet music

  • Picture cards 

 
Meet In The Music© has been developed and refined for over 20 years in the field of autism and special education with hundreds of children, and is a proven, successful curriculum in music therapy practice today that can immediately help you measure and validate your treatment plan.
— Esther Thane, BMT, MTA, AVPT |  Creator of MITM | Executive Director of ET Music Therapy
 

Included in the MITM curriculum is the relaxation program "Rooted in Music". 

For the child with Autism and their family, there is often daily stress of navigating through the challenges of interaction and overwhelming sensory input.  Providing opportunities to simply “be” in the moment and live in the rhythm for a while can help a child feel calmer, more relaxed, reduce anxiety and bring attention and focus to body and mind. This is an excellent resource for therapists, interventionists, parents, caregivers and any other members of a child’s treatment team. Enjoy this resource along with a child or for yourself!

I don’t usually use relaxation recordings in my practice, but Esther Thane’s Rooted in Music recording is an exception. Esther’s recordings work! The piano music and the sound of Esther’s voice are soothing and calming. I have used her recordings and found them to be very effective in helping anxious clients relax. I am thrilled they are included in her MITM curriculum for others to experience!
— Dr. Diane Austin, ACMT, LCAT, Director of the Music Psychotherapy Center in NYC, NY
“Thanks Esther! I’ve been listening to the relaxation recordings for autism, and I’ll just let you know that your music is relaxing for all populations, because it certainly relaxed me. Well Done!”
— Jake Beck, Owner UpBeat Music Therapy Services
 

Who is MITM For?

The Meet In The Music© (MITM) curriculum is for any music therapist in an organization or private practice using music to connect with children who have autism or other special education needs.

 
For music therapy in centers, in-home and clinics

For music therapy in centers, in-home and clinics

For music therapy telehealth session

For music therapy in private and public schools

For music therapy in private and public schools


 

What MITM users are Saying

I also want to give a huge shout out and appreciation to Esther Thane and her team at Unitus data collection program. This program and its data collection abilities alone has helped us maintain this grant fund for 3 years now and has also allowed us to increase the funds based on the data that we have collected and the needs that were reported based on this data! #grateful
— John Mews, Executive Director Mewsic Moves LLC
In addition to providing us with a documentation system that has worked well for our music therapy goals, MundoPato has worked with us in an efficient, professional and friendly manner to develop certain templates specified for our company.
— Christina McCracken, MT-BC, Melodic Connections, University of Dayton Music Therapy
The UnitusTI software has made my therapy work life about a thousand times better. It’s time consuming on the front end to enter activities and create programs for each client, but once that’s done, charting is SO FAST. I’m never ever scrambling for hours to get it all done. And now it’s generating data that I can track and share, AND it makes planning for future sessions so much easier. This is a huge game changer for me and I love it. Thank you for making it happen!
— Sara Longwell, Metro Music Makers
I have been using Unitus for the past 4 years, and my practice feels so much more advanced and organized than it was before. Not only do we now have a comprehensive database of goals and programs to use with our clients (which means we don’t need to rewrite goals and objectives over and over), but we can create progress notes, organize documents and client info, and share info between team members with ease. As an administrator, I absolutely love the clock in/out features, shared calendars, and session confirmations. These features make it infinitely easier to track hours for my team, and to know all sessions for the month for all clients. I can’t imagine running my business any other way. Unitus has freed me up to do so many other things in my business instead of drowning in paperwork. I’m so grateful to have them!
— Jaycie Voorhees, Executive Director: Harmony Music Therapy
Unitus has been a true game changer for my business. Customized daily progress notes and reports are completed in a few minutes and running data to complete monthly invoicing and payroll is a breeze. Every minute counts and this program has gone above and beyond my expectations for myself and the team.

MITM (Meet In The Music) curriculum is easy to use and is customizable to fit each client’s needs! We truly appreciate all of the video examples, visual supports, and sheet music from a practicum student, intern, and professional’s perspective! This curriculum is a must-have for any music therapy program!
— Ericha Rupp, Owner of Note-Able Music Therapy Services of MN
With MITM, my daughter responds on a different level… it speaks to her heart. I see it touching many different areas that she needs to work on: eye contact, social skills, bi-lateral integration, lots of sensory needs are being met, her ability to focus and calm herself. It’s just so seamless. She’s really her most happy and authentic self in these experiences.
— Sandra Doyle, parent of child with autism
I LOVE so many of your songs and interventions….you’re such a GREAT songwriter and I can tell you have a Nordoff Robins background when it comes to improvisation and chord structures….I don’t, so I’m in LOVE with the beautiful suspended chords, minor chords, and 7th chords you add to your songs…makes them so much more interesting then the basic I IV V chord structure! I also really love your Parent Programs like the Sway-Rock and Relaxation Program.
— Michelle Nettle, MT-BC, Blossom & Bloom Music Therapy Services, LLC
LOVING UnitUS!!! So intuitive, collects all collateral info and perfect for a start-up music therapy practice. Their customer support is also so helpful. Worth every penny!!! 🙏 Thanks.
— Julie Garrison, Owner Compass Music Therapy
As a speech and language pathologist, I’ve always known the benefit of music therapy for my students. I’m amazed at how much is worked on, each session. MITM works on things like social referencing, joint attention, language skills and following direction, listening carefully, learning new concepts, learning new vocabulary & expressive language… the list just goes on!
Where I’ve noticed a huge improvement with my daughter is her ability to self regulate. She actually finds the activities that are best for her. Once she’s had that, you can see her whole body calming down and it gets her ready to learn. With MITM, there is a really good balance between supporting my daughter to choose what she needs but also getting her open to learning and doing other things.
— Stephanie Chamut, Speech and language pathologist and parent of child with Autism
I have seen much improvement in my son through the M.I.T.M curriculum, he is more interactive, playful, and interested in music. Music is now an important part of how he perceives the world around him.
— John Seminerio, parent of child with Autism

 

How Does the MITM Curriculum Work?

The Meet In The Music© program is delivered to professionals via subscription to the UnitusTI electronic data records (EDR) cloud.  

Leading-edge data collection, staff and client management tools and program templates are built right into UnitusTI. 

  • See instant data and quickly graph progress to make informed decisions

  • Provide reports and share relevant data securely with others

  • Track staff performance and give them collaboration tools to keep your practice on track

  • Customizable data collection means you can track as much or as little as you need to keep business humming and your clients happy



Delivered through the UnitusTI electronic data records cloud and accessible from any device, anywhere in the world.

UnitusTI capabilities include:

Assessments |   Programs   |   Curricula   |   Data Acquisition Types   |   Program Maintenance   |  Target Maintenance   |   Pre-defined Reports   |   Customizable Reports   |   Service Code Tracking   |   Session Notes   |   Graphing   |  Calendar   |   Internal Messaging   |   Document Storage   |   Session Tracking   |   Interactive Materials   |   Role-based Access   |   Multimedia   |   Automatic Backups   |  Billing Prep   |   Real-time Data Monitoring


 

About the Author

 
Esther Thane, BMT, MTA, AVPT | Creator of MITM | Executive Director of ET Music Therapy

Esther Thane, BMT, MTA, AVPT |  Creator of MITM | Executive Director of ET Music Therapy

Esther has specialized since 1996 in the field of Autism and special needs.  After many wonderful years on faculty at Capilano University, teaching in the Bachelor of Music Therapy Program, Esther continues to enjoy presenting at conferences, writing book reviews for published journals, & holding workshops for universities, local agencies and internationally. In 2014, Esther completed Dr. Diane Austin's (Music Psychotherapy Center, NY) first international distance training program in Advanced Vocal Psychotherapy. Her publication in the book: Voicework in Music Therapy (Jessica Kingsley Publishers), focuses on her innovative method of Vocal-Led Relaxation for Children with Autism.  Esther created Meet In The Music (MITM) music therapy curriculum for children with autism, which is utilized by music therapists throughout the United States, Canada and Australia.  Esther is Executive Director of ET Music Therapy in Vancouver, British Columbia, where the team serve over 120 families with both in person and telehealth: in two studio locations, in schools, implementing the MITM curriculum. In 2017, Esther was honored to receive the Iconic Women Creating a Better World For All award, presented by the Women Economic Forum in New Delhi, India. Recently, Esther received the Canadian Association For Music Therapy “PEER Recognition” award for innovation and advocacy.