A longitudinal study on children's music training experience and academic development.
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ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Yang H
PROVIDER: S-EPMC5376161 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Jul
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
Publications
A longitudinal study on children's music training experience and academic development.
Yang Hua H Ma Weiyi W Gong Diankun D Hu Jiehui J Yao Dezhong D
Scientific reports 20140728
This study examined the relation between long-term music training and child development based on 250 Chinese elementary school students' academic development of first language (L1), second language (L2), and mathematics. We found that musician children outperformed non-musician children only on musical achievement and second language development. Additionally, although music training appeared to be correlated with children's final academic development of L1, L2, and mathematics, it did not indep ...[more]
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Project description:How music training and expertise influence non-musical abilities is a widely researched topic. Most studies focus on the differences between adult professional musicians and non-musicians, or examine the effects of intensive instrumental training in childhood. However, the impact of music programs developed in regular school contexts for children from low-income communities is poorly explored. We conducted a longitudinal training study in such communities to examine if collective (Orff-based) music training enhances fine motor abilities, when compared to a homologous training program in sports (basketball), and to no specific training. The training programs in music and sports had the same duration, 24 weeks, and were homologous in structure. A pre-test, training, post-test and follow-up design was adopted. Children attending the 3rd grade (n = 74, 40 girls; mean age 8.31 years) were pseudorandomly divided into three groups, music, sports and control that were matched on demographic and intellectual characteristics. Fine motor abilities were assessed with the Purdue pegboard test (eye-hand coordination and motor speed, both subsumed under manual dexterity, and bimanual coordination) and with the Grooved pegboard (manipulative dexterity) test. All groups improved in manipulative dexterity that was not affected by type of training. On bimanual coordination and manual dexterity, however, a robust and stable advantage of music training emerged. At the end of training (post-test), children from the music group significantly outperformed children from the sports and control groups, an advantage that persisted at follow-up 4 months after training at the start of the following school year. Also, at follow-up none of the children from the music group were performing below the 20th percentile in the Purdue pegboard subtests and more than half were performing at the high end level (>80th percentile). Children from the sports group also improved significantly from pre- to post-test but their performance was not significantly different from that of the control group. These results show that an affordable, collective-based music practice impacts positively on fine-motor abilities, a finding that is relevant for a better understanding of the impact of music in childhood development, and that may have implications for education at the primary grade.
| S-EPMC6308163 | biostudies-literature
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Project description:The pathways through which exposure to maternal depressive symptoms in early childhood are linked to academic performance during adolescence are poorly understood. This study tested pathways from maternal depressive symptoms (age 2-5) to adolescent academic performance (age 15) through cumulative parenting risk (age 7) and subsequent child functioning (age 10), using multi-informant data from a prospective longitudinal community study spanning 13 years (N = 389, 47% male, 68% White). Structural equation models testing indirect effects revealed small associations between maternal depressive symptoms and increased cumulative parenting risk and poorer child functioning, and, via these pathways, with poorer academic performance. Thus, childhood exposure to maternal depressive symptoms may be associated with pathways of risk that could limit children's educational opportunities.
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Project description:Several studies have suggested that intensive musical training enhances children's linguistic skills. Such training, however, is not available to all children. We studied in a community setting whether a low-cost, weekly music playschool provided to 5-6-year-old children in kindergartens could already affect their linguistic abilities. Children (N?=?66) were tested four times over two school-years with Phoneme processing and Vocabulary subtests, along with tests for Perceptual reasoning skills and Inhibitory control. We compared the development of music playschool children to their peers either attending to similarly organized dance lessons or not attending to either activity. Music playschool significantly improved the development of children's phoneme processing and vocabulary skills. No such improvements on children's scores for non-verbal reasoning and inhibition were obtained. Our data suggest that even playful group music activities - if attended to for several years - have a positive effect on pre-schoolers' linguistic skills. Therefore we promote the concept of implementing regular music playschool lessons given by professional teachers in early childhood education.
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Project description:OBJECTIVES:This study describes the development and implementation of a model to assess students' communication skills highlighting the use of reflective writing. We aimed to evaluate the usefulness of the students' reflections in the assessment of communication skills. DESIGN:Third-year and fourth-year medical students enrolled in an elective course on clinical communication skills development were assessed using different assessment methods. SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS:The communication skills course was offered at four universities (three in Brazil and one in Portugal) and included 69 students. OUTCOME MEASURES:The students were assessed by a Multiple-Choice Questionnaire (MCQ), an objective structured clinical examination (OSCE) and reflective writing narratives. The Cronbach's alpha, dimensionality and the person's correlation were applied to evaluate the reliability of the assessment methods and their correlations. Reflective witting was assessed by applying the Reflection Evaluation for Enhanced Competencies Tool Rubric (Reflect Score (RS)) to measure reflections' depth, and the Thematic Score (TS) to map and grade reflections' themes. RESULTS:The Cronbach alpha for the MCQ, OSCE global score, TS and RS were, respectively, 0.697, 0.633, 0.784 and 0.850. The interobserver correlation for the TS and RS were, respectively, 0.907 and 0.816. The assessment of reflection using the TS was significantly correlated with the MCQ (r=0.412; p=0.019), OSCE (0.439; p=0.012) and RS (0.410; p=0.020). The RS did not correlate with the MCQ and OSCE. CONCLUSIONS:Assessing reflection through mapping the themes and analysing the depth of reflective writing expands the assessment of communication skills. While the assessment of reflective themes is related to the cognitive and behavioural domains of learning, the reflective depth seems to be a specific competence, not correlated with other assessment methods-possibly a metacognitive domain.
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