The positive learning transfer from a musical play early-learning system® to young children’s linguistic and spatial skills

ABSTRACT

The benefits of musical play in cognitive development have recently received an upsurge of interest in the field of early childhood music education research. This study examines the positive learning transfer from a musical play early-learning system® to cognitive development. Specifically, we investigated the effects of early musically enriched multicultural play activities on linguistic and spatial skills once the children have reached school age. Four subtests were selected from the Wechsler's Preschool and Primary Intelligence Scale to assess linguistic and spatial skills. A group of twenty children aged between 50 and 82 months who had been exposed daily to a musical play platform over a period of 24 months (4 or 5 days a week, 45min/day) in daycare centres was selected and compared to a matched group of twenty children aged between 48 and 79 months who had not been exposed to this programme. Results showed that the musical play group obtained significantly higher scores than the non- musical play group in linguistic but not in spatial skills, regardless of parental SES. Linear regression analysis revealed that spatial skills predicted linguistic skills in the musical play group. A broader implementation of this musical play early- learning system® in more daycare settings is suggested.

KEYWORDS:

• Multicultural education
• musically enriched environment
• language
• spatial skills
• Early Childhood Music Education
• SES

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the children, teachers and caregivers of the participating daycare centres for their support and willing engagement in the research. Our gratitude also goes to Claudia Kespy-Yahi who creates the music early system, and to the music teachers for their professional expertise. We gratefully acknowledge the help of the children and the families participating in the research. Without their enthusiasm and support this study would not have been possible.

Author contributions

MTLN, CC and KM contributed equally to the conception and design of the work. Data collection as well as analysis and interpretation were undertaken by CC and KM under the supervision of MTLN.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

C. Caracci

Chantal Caracci is a lecturer in Child Psychology at the University of Paris. She comes from a multidisciplinary background, having studied, taught and researched in the fields of education and developmental psycholinguistics. Her research focuses on the applications of the musical play early-learning system® in daycare and preschool settings.

K. Martel

Karine Martel is a researcher at the laboratory on Disability, Accessibility, Educational and Educational Practices. Her research focuses on prosody, child language development and neurodevelopment disorders.

M.T. Le Normand

Marie-Thérèse Le Normand is a research director at the French Institute of Health and Medical Research. She currently works at The Hearing Institute and at the laboratory of Psychopathology and Health, University of Paris. She does research in Developmental Cognitive Psychology and Clinical Neuropsychology using spoken corpora, behavioural experiments and neuroimaging.

The positive learning transfer from a musical play early-learning system® to young children’s linguistic and spatial skills.