Music education and auditory processing in children with hearing loss

Abstract

Music education has many reported benefits for children including improved verbal reasoning, short-term memory, literacy, and numeracy. In recent years there has also been significant interest in these positive, extra-musical effects of music education as they relate to auditory processing. Benefits have been noted in many related areas, including attention, auditory working memory, understanding speech prosody, and understanding speech-in-noise. Children with musical training also show faster development of some neural mechanisms responsible for processing speech and music.In contrast, hearing loss appears to have a negative effect on auditory processing, with literature showing that children with hearing loss may have difficulty with skills such as auditory sequencing, auditory closure, and temporal processing, which can slow their development. Musical training requires active engagement with sound and may therefore produce the experience-dependent neuroplasticity necessary to overcome these issues. However, the effect of music education on the auditory processing of children with hearing loss currently remains unknown.Instrumental music education has occurred in hearing impaired populations for decades, but many music teachers remain sceptical or nervous about teaching children with hearing loss. Although previous research shows that normal hearing is not a prerequisite for developing musical skill, the logistical issues of teaching children with modern hearing aid technology are still not comprehensively understood. Furthermore, with most existing research focusing on the degree of musical skill attained, further investigation is required to understand the experiences of students with hearing loss, and that of their teachers, in instrumental music settings. This is especially crucial given that mainstream education, and therefore access to school based instrumental music, is now the norm for Australian children with hearing loss. This study therefore aimed to explore the benefits and challenges of music education for children with hearing loss by approaching the topic from two angles. Firstly, it sought to understand how four children who wore hearing aids learnt and progressed during nine months of group flute lessons compared to four of their normally hearing peers. Secondly, it mapped the children’s auditory processing skills over the course of their flute tuition to explore possible relationships between musical development and auditory processing. This was achieved by employing a mixed/multi-methods, multiple case study design, which sought to analyse progress quantitatively while simultaneously exploring the human experiences behind those numbers. The end result draws on a variety of methodologies, mixing narrative, statistical analysis, and imagery into a single comprehensive exploration of music education, auditory processing, and hearing loss.The results of this study revealed that the children with hearing loss attained the same performance standards as their normally hearing peers over the course of their flute lessons. Qualitative findings suggested that, for children with hearing loss, the degree of their hearing loss, age at diagnosis, (re)habilitative pathways, and hearing aid reliability all influenced how they learnt and progressed in flute lessons. However, one of the prevailing patterns was that teaching the children with hearing loss was not really about their disability and any weaknesses it caused. The children all brought some remarkable strengths to their lessons, some of which may have resulted from their hearing loss, therefore giving them an edge that their normally hearing peers lacked. Furthermore, shifting the focus from disability to ability made the learning process more enjoyable for all. When considering lessons from this angle, teaching students with hearing loss was much the same as teaching students with normal hearing.The auditory processing results were variable but still produced overall patterns. As predicted, the normally hearing control group had normal or borderline normal auditory processing skills at all assessment points, while results were more varied among the group with hearing loss. However, the children with hearing loss also showed more consistent improvement in their auditory processing skills over the course of flute tuition than their normally hearing counterparts. These improvements varied from student to student, but were substantial enough that three of the four children with hearing loss were performing within, or close to the normal range for their respective age groups by the end of the study in every skill except auditory stream segregation.Overall, the outcomes of this study suggest that normal hearing and normal auditory processing skills are not required for children to progress in group flute lessons. It also appears that flute lessons may help to nurture the development of auditory processing skills in children with hearing loss, however these results vary from child to child. Few modifications to teaching are required to support students with hearing loss in group flute lessons. Regardless of hearing status, all children had their own strengths and difficulties. Our job as teachers is therefore to capitalise on our students’ strengths and target difficulties with encouragement to help them progress and gain a sense of enjoyment from their playing.