ABC Study Update 2009

MAC’s neuroscience research study, examining connections between music, language, and self-regulation, is entering its fourth year. Phase 1 of the study tracks the development over a three year period of 5 toddlers, 2-5, all of whom have oral motor problems, language impairments, fine and gross motor difficulties, and behaviors caused by sensory integration dysfunction. All are classified or in early intervention. Children are seen once per week in 1-1 sessions using musical elements that may improve individual areas of disability. All sessions are videotaped and then examined for cause and effect between the musical activity and the child’s performance. A data collection tool developed by MAC is then used to quantify specific outcomes, as well as any predictable patterns of behavior over time. Rhythm and its patterns of segmentation, which were also reflected in speech and motor patterns, became the focus of the study as a result of the data collected. The first case study was presented in draft form in 2007. It presented a summary of the published research to date, followed by presentation of the data collected from the first child in the study. A second case study was presented in 2008. Since that time, four more children have progressed through the study, their growth documented weekly over a period of two years. Specific and predictable patterns of behavior have been discovered connecting specific musical rhythms to matching rhythmic verbal phrases, as are found in children’s nursery rhymes. Data suggests that improved expressive language and regulation have a direct correlation with the body’s rhythmic movement and how the brain organizes input around basic two and three beat phrases in native born American children.

Phase 2 of the study began in 2009. It is a play group of children who have been in the study for at least 6 months. The play group utilizes concepts that are introduced in the 1-1 sessions within a traditional pre-k model of instruction. The goal is to examine whether or not, and the degree to which the skills mastered in the1-1 environment generalize into the play group. The group is videotaped, comparisons made through data collection between performances in 1-1 as compared to that in the group.

The data collected from phase 1 and 2 will be analyzed during the summer of 2009 for presentation before the end of the year.