Singing One's Way to Self-Regulation: The Role of Early Music and Movement Curricula and Private Speech

Abstract

Research Findings: Although the role of language and private speech in the development of behavioral self-regulation has been studied, relations between behavioral self-regulation and children's experiences with other symbolic systems, such as music, have not yet been explored. Eighty-nine 3- and 4-year-old children (42 of whom had been enrolled in Kindermusik music and movement classes, and 47 demographically similar children who had not experienced structured early childhood music classes) completed a battery of laboratory self-regulation tasks and a selective attention task during which their private speech was reliably transcribed and categorized. Children currently enrolled in Kindermusik classes showed better self-regulation than those who were not currently enrolled (d = .41), and they also used more relevant private speech during the selective attention task (d = .57), a verbal strategy that was positively related to performance. Children exposed to the music program were also more likely to engage in the facilitative strategy of singing/humming to themselves during a waiting period in which they had to inhibit their desire to examine a gift, and they were less likely to call out socially to the experimenter, a strategy negatively associated with performance and self-regulation. Practice or Policy: Implications for early childhood education are discussed.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This work was presented at the 2009 Society for Research in Child Development conference in Denver, Colorado, and originated as part of a master's thesis for Lesley Ducenne and an honors thesis for Amanda Koury. We would like to thank Beth Frook and Kathy Preisinger at Little Hands, Inc., for their assistance with this project and for the excellent work they do everyday engaging young children in music and movement. We would also like to thank the parents and participating children. Finally, we would like to acknowledge Kindermusik International for providing assistance with research materials and participant support.

Notes

¹This was a survey study having to do with marital relationship quality that only involved parents filling out additional questionnaires—participation in the concurrent study was unlikely to influence the results presented here.

^a Significant Kindermusik × Age Group interaction (p = .07).

^b Significant age effect (p < .001).

^a Significant Kindermusik effect (p = .07).

^b Significant age group effect (p < .001).

Note. Numbers with different superscripts are significantly different from one another, *p < .05.

†p < .10. *p < .05.