Creativity and Special Needs: A Suggested Framework for Technology Applications

Abstract

One of the many roles of music teachers is to stimulate creative thinking and creative activity in their pupils. This obligation to help unlock latent musical talent in young people is no less applicable to the disabled than it is to the able-bodied. Music technology has a central place within this process. There are conditions for creativity, some of which may be precluded from the disabled. It is necessary, therefore, for the special needs music teacher to be aware of these conditions and the way in which a particular disability may bar access to any of them. Those involved in the design of either music hardware or software need to be responsive to these factors, through ongoing collaborative work. This paper was presented at a Conference of the Drake Research Project, University of York, November, 1990.