Dr Vicky’s Research Update

Dr Vicky Abad presented at the Australian Music Therapy Association (AMATA) national conference in September 2018, before jetting off to Canada to present her research on building family health and well being through music.

Dr Vicky, who is currently the AMTA President, presented on how she grew Music Beat Australia to the business it is today, from one mothers’ music group that she started with friends when Miss MB was just four months old.

From there she flew straight on to Canada for an international symposium Mapping the musical life-course: Advancing theoretical frameworks and methodologies for understanding emergent affordances, challenges, and constraints across the musical lifecourse.

There she presented her research on the many benefits attending Music Early Learning Programs has for families to some of the best minds in music.

Vicky attended the symposium with her University of Queensland colleagues Professor Margaret Barret and Dr Libby Flynn, (pictured above) who Dr Vicky collaborated with on a large research project to map the musical lives of Australian families.

One part of this research project showed that the more children shared music in the home with their parents, the better their long term cognitive and social skills development.