It’s music to their ears.

Judy Jones knows the way to aiding the development of a child’s communication and social skills – even an autistic child – is through music and movement.

This was evident during the Milestones in Music grand opening last Saturday at its new studio at 227 S. Broad St. in Lansdale.

“Music and movement is a program that helps develop children and their entire bodies: their cognitive, their physical and their emotional and social skills,” said owner Judy Jones. “We use music to help a child learn their steady beat from their earliest infant years.

For instance, an infant would be taught a steady beat, and that, in turn, is used to start learning how to crawl and walk.

“You need a steady beat for everything: to be able to walk, to cut with scissors, to dribble a basketball. We just have a fun music program that is extremely beneficial to every child,” said Judy Jones.

Milestones in Music serves infants aged 3 months to children aged six years old.

While the main program is for every child, Milestones in Music recently became certified for autism movement therapy.

“That is a special program for children on the autism spectrum, and that program uses less singing, still a lot of music and a lot of designed movement that helps organize the brain,” said Judy Jones.

Steven Jones, business development director, said the program at Milestones in Music helps children to develop muscle coordination and to develop mentally through activities that stimulate the brain.

“These are activities that develop coordination, and we also tie in activities that help with math and speech development,” he said.

Instruments are a big resource at Milestones in Music. They use ones like bells for infants and more appropriate instruments like triangles for older children.

“Instruments help with fine motor skills and they help them move with specific movements of the body. Instruments facilitate us in doing that,” said Judy.

As a child reaches the age of four in the program, the curriculum moves to teaching them the names of notes, teaching them how to read notes and teaching them how to read and write rhythm.

“That’s when we start using the larger instruments, like the glockenspiel, dulcimer and xylophone,” said Judy. “The three-string dulcimer has color-coded notes. They will be able to recognize not only color, but also the notes and where they sit.

Milestones in Music also has private lessons for youths and adults who graduate from the Young Musicians program.

“We give private lessons in flute, violin, guitar and piano,” said Judy.

Furthermore, there is a speech therapist at Milestones in Music.

“So many young children need a little extra help with speech,” said Judy. “Music is a tremendous benefit to verbal skills, but now there is a specific, trained person to help children.”

In addition to its studio programs and parent/child classes for ages 3 months to six years, the business also offers daycare programs for infants and kindergarteners in daycare classrooms.

At present, Milestones in Music serves 1,200 children a week in the daycare program.

“It’s a curriculum-based semester, with 12-week semesters,” said Judy Jones. “Each semester we change themes. This semester’s theme is ‘Colorful Creatures.’ We teach a different color each week and the children learn a new color and a new creature.”

Milestones in Music has been in existence since 2003. For that past eight years, it had based itself out of various churches like Bethel Hill Methodist and Heidelberg United Church of Christ.

“We rented space to accommodate our growth,” Steven Jones said.

Judy Jones said children have developed without music and movement for centuries, but in this day and age, advances have made us realize how music helps organize the brain.

“It uses both the right hemisphere and left hemisphere. It is one of the only disciplines that uses both simultaneously,” she said. “We are able to offer children a benefit that many years ago perhaps was not available to them.”

Jones described Milestones in Music as “a very synergistic program.”

With the success of the grand opening, it seems more parents are ready to move to the music.

“We’re excited to be a part of the Lansdale community,” said Judy.

Learn more about Milestones in Music at www.MilestonesInMusic.com and contact them at (610) 505-1449.