She interned at a psychiatric hospital, and began a private practice serving developmentally disabled and mentally ill persons. Samsonova-Jellison.
While an undergraduate student, Roberta Adler founded the music therapy curriculum at Wayne State University, Detroit (now located at the University of Windsor), and was its first graduate in 1973. Relocating to California, she spent a year as a special education teacher at a private school, and three years as a program director at a facility for developmentally disabled persons. As Owner/Director
of Mobile Music Therapy Services of Orange County, she serves 200 clients weekly with a clinical focus in developmental disabilities, psychiatry, and gerontology. She is a Fellow of the Academy of Neurologic Music Therapy, and an Internship Director. Roberta owns one patent, for the Adapt-a-Pick, a device designed to facilitate simultaneous client/therapist use of an autoharp or Q-Chord. She is the author of Musical Assessment of Gerontologic Needs and Treatment: The MAGNET Survey. She also co-authored Music Therapy for Multisensory and Body
Awareness in Children and Adults with Severe to Profound Multiple Disabilities: The MuSense Manual with Olga V. Roberta’s specialties include assessment procedures, and music therapy and the MDS. Bobbi has received several awards, including the Wayne State University Howard J. Donnelly Leadership and Scholarship Award; the Western Region, American Music Therapy Association Professional Practice Award; and the Shallway Foundation Award for Professional Excellence in Public Performance. Bobbi is a lyric-coloratura soprano with stage and television experience. She is President of Southern California Dulcimer Heritage, and teaches fretted dulcimer. Her personal interests include her family and friends, collecting handblown glass, folk and Celtic music, her cat, and her musical Cockateil.
