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Music in Everyday Life (MEL) Assessment

Catalog of Assessment Tools

Music in Everyday Life (MEL) Assessment

The MEL is designed to assess the use of music in the everyday life of families who have young children who attend music therapy sessions.

Catalog of Assessment Tools

Music in Everyday Life (MEL) Assessment

The MEL is designed to assess the use of music in the everyday life of families who have young children who attend music therapy sessions.

Title (Acronym) Music in Everyday Life (MEL) Assessment
Author(s) Gottfried, T., & Thompson, G.
Publication date 2018
Publisher info Journal of Music Therapy
Purpose The MEL is designed to assess the use of music in the everyday life of families who have young children who attend music therapy sessions.
Assessment
index terms

Questionnaire
Population Parents of young children with neurodevelopmental challenges and developmental delays.
Scores Joint Activities using Music (MEL-JAM) total score, and Routine Activities using Music (MEL-RAM) total score.
Administration Individual (including one set of parents).
Time 5-10 minutes self-report
Comments
  • Published evidence: reliability.
  • The MEL Assessment has successfully been used in effect studies (4 countries out of the TIME-A multi-site study, and Tali Gottfried's PhD study) and in clinical settings such as: children with autism and children with typical development.  
  • No training is needed in order to administer the MEL.
  • Recommended  to be administered by music therapists experienced in working with families.
CROSS REFERENCES

Soon to come.
Reference

Gottfried, T., Thompson, G., Elefant, C., & Gold, C. (2018). Reliability of the Music in Everyday Life (MEL) scale: a parent-report assessment for children on the autism spectrum, Journal of Music Therapy, 55, 133-155. doi: 10.1093/jmt/thy002
REVIEW None.
Description

The MEL Assessment is a self-report questionnaire for parents, which aims to collect and assess information regarding the various ways that parents use music with their children in home environment. It is focused on relational music interactions, and therefore asks the parents to address only situations where mutual musical activities occur, and not times when the children use music on their own. The MEL captures both the frequency and the experience of different musical activities. It was designed for clinical and research purposes.

At the MEL website, mel-assessment.com, you can free download your own copy of the MEL, now available in 6 languages: English, Hebrew, Portuguese, Italian, German and Danish.