Abstract
The impact of music interventions on the cognitive skills of young children has become the focus of a growing number of research studies in recent years. This study investigated the effect of weekly musicianship training on the executive function abilities of 3-to-4-year-old children at a London, United Kingdom preschool, using a two-phase experimental design. In Phase 1, 14 children (Group A) took part in eight weekly musicianship classes, provided by a specialist music teacher, while 25 children (Groups B and C combined) engaged in nursery free play. Results of this Phase showed Group A to have improved on two measures relating to planning and inhibition skills. During Phase 2, Group A continued with music classes, while Group B began music classes for the first time and Group C took part in an art intervention. Repeated measures ANOVA found no significant difference in performance improvement between the three participant groups during phase 2; however, the performance difference between groups was nearing significance for the peg tapping task (p = 0.06). The findings from this study contribute to current debates about the potential cognitive benefit of musical interventions, including important issues regarding intervention duration, experimental design, target age groups, executive function testing, and task novelty.
Highlights
Executive FunctionExecutive function (EF) is a multidimensional cognitive construct that refers to gaining strategic control over your own mental processes
Data presented for Phase 2 in Tables 8 and 9 compare Executive FunctionExecutive function (EF) improvement across the three participant groups between time point 2 (TP2) and time point 3 (TP3), using a 3×2 repeated measures ANOVA
There was a trend for greater improvement in the two music intervention groups on the peg tapping task during Phase 2, which suggests that the music sessions may have had some impact on children’s inhibitory motor response skills
Summary
Executive function (EF) is a multidimensional cognitive construct that refers to gaining strategic control over your own mental processes. This could be through inhibiting certain thoughts or actions, or by developing an awareness of your thoughts, feelings, and behavior. It is generally assumed that as children gain metaknowledge about their mental processes, their strategic control will improve (Goswami, 2015). An assimilation of the elements that go together to make up EF and a clear understanding of how they link with the processes of metacognition, remain topics of debate. The elements of EF which are commonly considered to work together to produce cognitive control include working memory, inhibition, and cognitive flexibility (Miyake and Friedman, 2012). During the first few years of life, children develop several broad abilities to hold
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