Resolving latency in online music-making [Episode 4]

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Episode notes

Featured Scientist: Dr Allison Fuller, School of Humanities & Communication Arts

Dr Allison Fuller explores how music therapy can be a tool to help many different groups of people and ages, from infants in NICU to elderly struggling with dementia.

Prior to COVID-19, music therapy was done face-to-face, but the pandemic required shifting to online delivery. But how can you make music together when audio and video is delayed? This problem of transmission of signals is called latency. Allison explains how her research resolves this problem.

Allison (Al) has been a Registered Music Therapist (RMT) for almost 30 years, with practice focus areas including autism, hearing loss, complex needs, family-centred practice, culture-centred practice and technology within music therapy.

Al is the Academic Program Advisor (APA) for the Master of Creative Music Therapy program at Western Sydney University, and has completed her PhD in the use of visual supports within music therapy practice across face-to-face and telepractice platforms. The Fuller & McLeod (2019) publication on The Connected Music Therapy Teleintervention Approach (CoMTTA) and its application to family-centred programs for young children with hearing loss, was a timely offering to the profession published prior to the global pandemic. Al was the invited guest editor for the 2021 Special Edition of the Australian Journal of Music Therapy titled, This is Australia... Online Music Therapy... Down Under... Telehealth approaches to music therapy within Australia during the COVID-19 pandemic, and was an invited member of the Telehealth Special Interest Group for the IAMM Conference.

Al’s recent research projects involve investigating online music therapy delivery by RMTs providing services within Western Sydney, utilising the ‘Elk LIVE Bridge’ technology; and the development of a parent coaching program for utilising music with children with hearing loss, including telepractice delivery. Al is a regular conference presenter at national and international conferences, and was awarded the Helen Shoemark Research Excellence Award for her conference presentation The Music Therapy Visual Schedule Approach (MT-ViSA): Amplifying music therapy programs through the co-design integration of visual supports into practice at the 47th National Conference of the Australian Music Therapy Association.

Al has recently received a 'Hands-On Early Career Researcher Grant', a 'Vice-Chancellor's Professional Development Scholarship' and a 'Research Infrastructure Funding Grant' through Western Sydney University.

Learn more about the Master of Creative Music Therapy (MCMT) at Western Sydney University:

• MCMT@WSU Promo Slides Handout (opens in a new window)
• MCMT@WSU Promo A4 Flyer (opens in a new window)
• MCMT@WSU Promo Video (opens in a new window)