Special educational needs/disability: innovations and innovative practices in music education and music teacher education

In this chapter, I present innovations – in thinking, in musical ‘tools’ and in macro and micro educational approaches – by a range of institutions, groups and individuals – in relation to the use assistive technologies to support the music education of young people with SEN/D. This is focussed on work, in which
I am involved, within my home city of Bristol in South-West England.
I begin by outlining the educational context to this work. I then present findings from a recent research project I carried out in a local special school for secondary age students (aged eleven to eighteen), which illustrates some of the affordances of new assistive music technologies. There follows an account of a research study in which I explored trainee teachers’ responses to Music and SEN/D work within my own music initial teacher education course. The
chapter ends with a discussion of the national and international implications of my findings.