Cassandra Chng
About
Since her experience as a preschool music teacher, Cassandra sees the potential of music being beyond education and recreation.
It was the use of music with preschoolers who required more aid in their learning that reignited her passion to pursue music therapy. Believing strongly that music can bring healing where no surgical instrument can reach, this led her to enrol in the MA Music Therapy programme as the inaugural batch of music therapists.
Cassandra's experiences and engagement with young children, youths and the elderly prior to the course prepared her well for the interactions during her placements at St Andrew's Community Hospital, KKH Women's and Children's Hospital and the Singapore Association for Mental Health. During her clinical placements in the medical and community settings, she led individual and group music therapy sessions for various ages.
After graduation, Cassandra hopes to continue to contribute in the field of music therapy, specifically in the mental health setting. She hopes to research in the local context for community music therapy as well as continue to explore Singapore's unique music culture and its impact on the clinical practice locally.
The role of music therapy for post-stroke aphasia: Systematised review
The aim of this review is to collate the common goals and interventions in music therapy (MT) for post-stroke aphasia and its application to the context of speech rehabilitation in Singapore.
A literature search was carried out on Taylor & Francis and PubMed for original studies on MT interventions for post-stroke aphasia by music therapists. The search yielded three articles that met the inclusion criteria. After a screening which used an exploratory search process, included articles were analysed through narrative synthesis.
Two RCTs and a case report were analysed. The primary goal was language recovery, and improvisation, Melodic Intonation Therapy and Therapeutic Singing were the MT interventions used.
The dissertation suggests that further research is required to adapt the findings to the variety of languages in Singapore.
Professional practice
In her placement experiences from a community hospital to an acute hospital and, finally, a community mental health setting, Cassandra has refined her approach in practice to be person-centred and biopsychosocial and spiritual.
With the understanding of music therapy in a multidisciplinary and multimodal team, collaboration is important to her practice. Cassandra seeks to see a bigger picture of a team and a larger system to see where music therapy belongs.
Continual training and research, especially in the local context, are essential to her practice with Singapore's ever-changing and growing demographics.
Creative Arts Therapies Symposium 2025
Presented as a student presenter on the topic of "Beyond Patriotism: Exploring the Purpose of National Day Songs in Singapore’s Music Therapy Context". The presentation analysed the lyrics of the national day songs and suggestions of how the songs could be used in the local context.
Valerie Teo Minyi
Joycelyn Sim
Jeremy Nuyda Joson
Chia Jing Xuan (Jingle)
Tan Jia Rou
Liu Huiyi
