2011/03/25 by Adam Winsler, Lesley Ducenne, Amanda Koury +1 · 5 citations
Arts and Humanities · Neuroscience · Social Sciences · #Diverse Music Education Insights #Early Childhood Education and Development #Neuroscience and Music Perception
paper · doi:10.1080/10409280903585739
openalex publication_date 2011/03/25 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/29
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.