LECTURE EXTENSION Does Early Exposure to Music Enhance Cognitive Development? (p. 350)
A number of recent studies have found a link between musical and spatial reasoning abilities. More specifically, researchers have found that exposure to various types of music stimulates the neurons in the cerebral cortex much like the acquisition of spatial-temporal skills. Spatial reasoning is an important aspect of cognitive development because it involves the ability to establish relationships between items. Moreover, researchers have found that the mental processes involved in spatial reasoning are also involved in the performance of musical tasks (Bilhartz, Bruhn, & Olson, 2000). In one study, Gromko and Poorman (1998) examined the effect of musical exposure on IQ test performance. One group of preschoolers participated in 7 months of weekly instruction in singing and songbell playing. A second group received no musical instruction. The authors found that the preschoolers in the musical exposure group significantly outperformed the preschoolers in the control group on the Wechsler Performance IQ test. In a related study, Bilhartz, Bruhn, & Olson (2000) selected seventy-one 4-and 5-year olds from various preschools, Head Start centers, and a music center and randomly assigned them to two groups: a music treatment group (Kindermusik) and a control group which did not provide musical instruction. Pre-tests and post-tests of the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale (SB) and the Young Child Music Skills Assessment (MSA) were administered to each child in order to assess progress during the experiment. The study lasted 30 weeks with 75 minute sessions each week being dedicated to musical exposure in the treatment group. Activities in the treatment group included singing, playing percussion instruments, learning to recognize basic rhythms, reading and writing music, and dancing. Parents and caregivers were also encouraged to participate in the program. While there were no significant differences between the experimental and control groups on the pre-test SB, post-test results indicated that children in the experimental group outperformed children in the control group on one measurement of abstract reasoning ability, the SB Bead Memory subtest. Bead Memory includes visual memory, sequencing, chunking, and clustering strategies, attention, and manual dexterity. However, the experimental group did not differ from the control group on post-test measurements of vocabulary, memory for sentences, pattern analysis, and quantitative reasoning, suggesting that musical training enhances spatial- temporal reasoning abilities but does not affect spatial recognition skills. The results of these two studies support the hypothesis that early music instruction has a positive influence on some areas of cognitive development. Nonetheless, additional research is needed in order to determine the amount and type of musical exposure necessary for accelerated cognitive development. Bilhartz, T. D., Bruhn, R. A., & Olson, J. E. (2000). The effect of early music training on child cognitive development. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 20, 615-636.
Gromko, J., & Poorman, A. (1998). The effect of music training on preschoolers' spatial-temporal task performance. Journal of Music Education, 46, 173-181. LEARNING ACTIVITY Observing Young Children's Make-Believe Play (p. 325)
The text summarizes important changes in children's make-believe play that take place during the early preschool years. Students can visit a home or child care center, focus on 1 1/2- to 3-year-olds, and watch for these developments: 1. Make-believe becomes increasingly detached from the real-life conditions associated with it. At first, toddlers use only realistic objects to act out pretend themes. Around age 2, they use less realistic toys, such as a block for a telephone receiver, more frequently. Sometime during the third year, children can imagine objects and events without any support from the real world. 2. The way in which the "child as self" participates in play changes with age. When make-believe first appears, it is directed toward the self; that is, children pretend to feed or wash only themselves. A short time later, pretend actions are directed toward other objects, as when the child feeds a doll. And early in the third year, objects are used as active agents. The child becomes a detached participant who makes a doll feed itself or a parent doll feed a baby doll. 3. Play gradually includes increasingly complex scheme combinations. The toddler can pretend to drink from a cup, but does not yet combine pouring and drinking. Over time, children coordinate pretend schemes, especially in sociodramatic play, the make-believe with others that first appears around age 2½.
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