SCIENTIFIC FOUNDATION
of Sing and Speak 4 Kids


Dr. Hayoung Lim
Director of Science
- Professor of Music Therapy and Director of Music Therapy Clinic at Oral Roberts University
- Board-certified, neurologic music therapist (NMT Fellow)
- Member of the American Music Therapy Association (AMTA)
- Specialized training in the Rational Scientific Mediating Model for research in music therapy
- Focus on the effect of music on children with Autism Spectrum Disorders and the effect of musical experiences on cognition, speech/language and physical rehabilitation
Bachelors in Cello Performance from the Catholic University of Korea
Masters in both Cello Performance and Music Therapy from the Illinois State University
Ph.D. in music education with an emphasis on music therapy from the University of Miami
Dr. Lim has been active throughout her clinical and teaching endeavors in promoting and educating the community regarding the benefits of music therapy, and has served as artistic director of the ORU Music Therapy Healing Concert Series.
Professional History
- Music therapy internship at Lutheran General Hospital, Park Ridge, IL,
- Music therapist at the Cleveland Music School Settlement in Cleveland, OH.
- Music therapy director at Children’s Health & Education Management, Miami, FL - specialized in music therapy for children with Autism Spectrum Disorders
- Joined ORU in 2014 and prior to her current appointment, worked as Director of Graduate Studies in Music Therapy at Sam Houston State University in Texas.
In addition, Dr. Lim has worked as a concert cellist, performing numerous solo recitals and chamber music concerts (as a member of K-Piano Trio) in Seoul, Korea and the U.S.
Clinical Music Therapy Experience
Major clinical populations include
- neurologic rehabilitation
- geriatrics
- psychiatrics and forensic psychiatrics
- special education and developmental disabilities
- neonatal and pediatric medicine
- intensive care
- hospice
- medical settings
Publications
A number of her manuscripts have been published in peer-reviewed journals, including Journal of Music Therapy and Music Therapy Perspectives
BOOK: “Developmental Speech-language Training through Music for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders” (2012)
Published book chapter: “Communication and Language Development: Implications for Music Therapy and Autism Spectrum Disorders” in Early Childhood Music Therapy and Autism Spectrum Disorders (Kern & Humpal Eds., 2012)
Awards and Presentations
Dr. Lim has won two Sam Houston State University faculty research grant awards and frequently presented her original research in national and international conferences and workshops. In March, 2014, Dr. Lim was invited as a keynote speaker to the International Conference on Developmental Disability at the University of Calcutta, India. In 2015, Dr. Lim accepted a research reviewer position for a European Marie-Curie Fellowship program in autism and intellectual disabilities called ASSISTID (www.assistid.eu).
RESEARCH Team
Our interdisciplinary research team is comprised of professionals who are experts in the fields of
- Autism
- Psychology
- Communication Disorders
- Early Childhood Development/Pediatrics
- Parent-mediated Intervention
- Music
- Music Education
- Educational Technology
This team collaboration reflects the goals of integrating and implementing this intervention in the clinical practice of speech-language pathology and special education.
THE REST OF THE SCIENCE DATA
What all do you want to include.
DSLM Study
Lim (PI) performed randomized control trials with DSLM (Lim, 2010) on children 3-5 years of age with ASD (n=50), divided into low-functioning (n=25) and high-functioning (n=25) groups based on their scores on either the Childhood Autism Rating Scale (CARS) (Schopler et. al, 1988), or the Autism Diagnostic Interview Revised (ADI-R) (Lord et. al., 1994).
The study measured performance with the author’s Verbal Production Evaluation Scale (VPES) that measures four aspects of speech and language: prosody, pragmatics, articulation and phonology.
Three conditions were tested in between-subject groups:
music-based training, speech-only training, and no training.
High-functioning children with minor speech deficits responded equally to music-based and non-music-based training. More significantly, the low-functioning
children with severe speech-delays responded to DSLM music-based training with 60% improvement in their VPES scores, while the control group using non-music-based training exhibited 15% improvement.
The results of this analysis indicate that an interaction between training condition and level of functioning may in fact exist in the population, since the statistical results of this interaction approached significance.
