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Cover Gli strumenti degli altri
Series «Il mestiere si impara» · 5/5

Other People's Tools

Tests, scales and team dialogue · In Italian

A music therapist walks into a team meeting. On the table there are a FIM score, a FAST stage, a CMAI filled in by the care staff. Everyone can read them except him — and for an hour he remains the guest of a conversation about the very people he works with every day. This volume exists to end that hour.

Download the free PDF →

Why this repertoire exists

The title states the rule: these are other people's tools, and knowing them does not authorize administering them. Where a tool is accessible to the trained music therapist, within a protocol shared with the team, its entry says so explicitly. The competence this volume builds is one of reading, dialogue and positioning — the one that lets the music therapist join the shared clinical reasoning as a professional, not as a guest.

It is not read in an armchair: you keep it open on the table, five minutes before the meeting. It is the only volume of the series you do not read cover to cover: you consult it.

What you find in the PDF (116 pages)

Ch. 1 — The preventive setting
Pregnancy and postpartum, early childhood and bonding, developmental screening, healthy ageing, wellbeing, burnout
Ch. 2 — The educational setting
Neurodevelopmental disorders, specific learning disorders, language and communication in childhood, school distress and inclusion
Ch. 3 — The rehabilitative setting
Movement and gait, language and communication, cognitive disorders
Ch. 4 — The socio-health setting
Geriatrics and dementias, psychiatry, oncology, palliative care and hospice, addictions, eating disorders
Three tiers of learning priority
The core to know well, the second tier to recognize and contextualize, the specialist or niche tools
For every setting
The "minimum set for the team", an alphabetical glossary of the tools and an essential bibliography
For each tool: what it measures, who administers it, and what the music therapist needs to know about it

Who it is for

  • → Music therapists who work in teams and read records and reports written by other professionals
  • → Trainees entering a service for the first time and meeting its language
  • → Students looking for a thesis topic: the repertoire flags the tools with no Italian validation
  • → Anyone who has read "Evaluating in Music Therapy" and must choose the measure that speaks to the setting

Download the PDF — it's free

Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0 license. Share it freely, citing the source. The volume is in Italian.

How to cite: Caneva, P. A. (2026). Gli strumenti degli altri. https://canevapaolo.it

Go to Resources and download →

Questions? Mentoring is the right place.

In the same series

1 Observing in Music Therapy 2 Designing Music Therapy Projects 3 The Project Workbook 4 Evaluating in Music Therapy — the volume that gives this repertoire its logic → All free resources

Frequently asked questions

Can a music therapist administer tests such as the MoCA, PHQ-9 or EPDS?

No. Knowing an assessment instrument does not mean being authorised to administer it: administration and interpretation belong to those with the mandate and training for it. The volume states for each who may use it, and where a trained music therapist may instead collect data within an agreed protocol.

Then why learn about them?

To understand what a colleague is measuring when they quote a score, to read a clinical record, to choose the measures for a project and to write a report the team can use. It is the difference between being a tolerated presence and an expected professional.

Which instruments does the repertoire cover?

More than a hundred tests and scales met across four working contexts — preventive, educational, rehabilitative and health-and-social-care — from MMSE and MoCA to CMAI, GDS, PHQ-9, EPDS, SDQ, Vineland, ESAS and WHOQOL-BREF, with what they measure, how to read a score, and notes for the music therapist.

How do you choose which measure to use in a project?

The rule is that every project should have at least one measure that speaks to the context — chosen here — and at least one that sees what happens inside the music, chosen in «Valutare in musicoterapia». It is the pair that makes the design.