Nursery Rhymes Research Articles

Children's Neural Sensitivity to Prosodic Features of Natural Speech and Its Significance to Speech Development in Cochlear Implanted Children.

Catchy utterances, such as proverbs, verses, and nursery rhymes (i.e., “No pain, no gain” in English), contain strong-prosodic (SP) features and are child-friendly in repeating and memorizing; yet the way those prosodic features encoded by neural activity and their influence on speech development in children are still largely unknown. Using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS), this study investigated the cortical responses to the perception of natural speech sentences with strong/weak-prosodic (SP/WP) features and evaluated the speech communication ability in 21 pre-lingually deaf children with cochlear implantation (CI) and 25 normal hearing (NH) children. A comprehensive evaluation of speech communication ability was conducted on all the participants to explore the potential correlations between neural activities and children’s speech development. The SP information evoked right-lateralized cortical responses across a broad brain network in NH children and facilitated the early integration of linguistic information, highlighting children’s neural sensitivity to natural SP sentences. In contrast, children with CI showed significantly weaker cortical activation and characteristic deficits in speech perception with SP features, suggesting hearing loss at the early age of life, causing significantly impaired sensitivity to prosodic features of sentences. Importantly, the level of neural sensitivity to SP sentences was significantly related to the speech behaviors of all children participants. These findings demonstrate the significance of speech prosodic features in children’s speech development.

Micro:bit Hero: Using MakeCode to Replicate Popular Songs

This lesson opens with an introduction of how to program the Micro:bit using block code to play music using the piano keyboard embedded in the music section of Micro:bit Make Code. In this lesson, students explore how to make music using this feature and learn how to program the Micro:bit using MakeCode to incorporate rests and different notes (quarter, half, and full) to replicate nursery rhymes or popular songs. The lesson concludes with a discussion of the challenges/limitations of coding the Micro:bit to play music. Students also shared their musical creations with their peers through a “Name that Tune” game where they attempted to guess which popular song or nursery rhyme their peers had replicated in MakeCode.
 Time: 30-45 minutes

Acquainting English to Young Learners through Nursery Rhymes at Playgroup

<em>Most children like and enjoy singing songs. It can be used as one of materials for foreign language learning. Using nursery rhymes in the classroom can be a great break from following a set curriculum</em><em>. This study aims to know the way to acquaint English to young learners through nursery rhymes, to identify the criteria of nursery rhymes that suits on the students, and to know the strengths and challenges in acquainting English to young learners through nursery rhymes at Playgroup. Qualitative research was employed to conduct this study. To collect the data, some techniques were carried out namely observation, interview, and documentation. The results revealed that the acquaintance of young learners English through nursery rhymes considers the content; students’ readiness, and class atmosphere, the nursery rhymes must teach the character education; the strengths in acquainting English to young learners through nursery rhymes at Halimatus Sa’diyah playgroup are the commitment among the manager/organizers, teachers and parents and the high awareness that English is important. And, the challenges are low teacher’s pedagogical competency, facilities, curriculum/material, and non-English school or living environment.</em>

Animals and Their Children in Victorian Culture, edited by Brenda Ayres and Sarah E. Maier

Reviewed by: Animals and Their Children in Victorian Culture ed. by Brenda Ayres and Sarah E. Maier Alicia Carroll (bio) Animals and Their Children in Victorian Culture, edited by Brenda Ayres and Sarah E. Maier; pp. xiii + 264. London and New York: Routledge, 2019, $160.00, $44.05 ebook. Brenda Ayres and Sarah E. Maier's collection, Animals and Their Children in Victorian Culture, aims to reverse the problem of human exceptionalism that underplays the subjectivity and agency of animals. In many cases, the collection succeeds admirably. It is at its best when exploring the ontological intimacies between animals and children, noting the power of shared qualities—smallness, muteness, or perceived passivity—to erode the animal/human binary; the book also excels at emphasizing culture, widely defined, over canonical literature in animal studies. Readers will find this topic a welcome new focus in the field with a corresponding expansion of the canon of animal studies. From the beginning, authors in the collection note the paradoxes of the animal-child relationship in foundational Victorian children's texts. Ayres writes that the tenor of nursery rhymes changed in the 1830s as animals began to instruct children in kindness as well as the carnivore's discourse in which "birds and mice were on purpose for eating" (23). Keridiana Chez's chapter, "Wanted Dead or Alive: Rabbits in Victorian Children's Literature," notes likewise that rabbits are the "sweetest pets as well as the sweetest flesh" in Victorian children's literature. She substantiates the claim that Victorian children's literature legitimizes "the most glaring discursive contradictions in our treatment of nonhuman Others" (31). In "Unruly Females on the Farm: Domestic Animal Mothers and the Dismantling of the Species Hierarchy in Nineteenth-Century Literature for Children," Stacy Hoult-Saros shows that children and farm animals are equated in being unruly and in need of adult authority. Such texts disturb hierarchical thought, prefiguring the posthuman. In "A Brotherhood of Wolves: Loyalty in Yiddish and Anglo-Jewish Folktales," Lindsay Katzir and Brandon Katzir argue that the wolf in Victorian Anglo-Jewish tales, often represented as a pack animal defending its communal life, responds to British stereotypes of Jewish people as lone wolves. Emphasizing cohesion, the wolf in these tales resists the threat of assimilation. This essay introduced welcome new texts to this Victorianist, along with questions of how alternative cultural animal symbolism might prompt ethical thought about advocacy for wolves and their habitat now. Animal advocacy is at the forefront of Alisa Clapp-Itnyre's contribution. Her "Advocating for the Least of These: Empowering Children and Animals in The Band of Mercy Advocate" expands our knowledge of Victorian periodical literature and children's advocacy for animals in a fascinating study of how the journal of the Band of Mercy, The Advocate (1879–83), renegotiated associations between animals and human children through their shared bodily vulnerability, muteness, and passivity. Despite the risks of this alliance, children sang, pledged, recited, and petitioned for animals. Through their public work, both animal and human bodies came to matter. Less obscure works by Lewis Carroll, George Eliot, and the Brontës, as well as Thomas Hughes's Tom Brown's Schooldays (1857), also appear here. Constance Fulmer demonstrates that Eliot's novels satirize Victorian culture that treats children like animals and animals like children. Her survey will be valuable to those interested in animals in Eliot. Maier, in "Neither Brutes nor Beasts: Animals, Children, and Young Persons and/in the Brontës," shows that children abuse animals as they themselves have been abused. Maier also notices slippages between the ontological categories of animal and human [End Page 318] when adults (violently) refuse kindness to children as well as to animals. She also makes the important point that the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (1824) was formed some sixty years before the formation of the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (1884). Citing Donna Haraway, Maier notes that the relationships between both associations offer "not irrational denials of human weakness," but instead "clear-sighted recognition of the connection across the discredited breach of nature and culture" (qtd. in Maier 199). Her work, like Hoult-Saros's...

Formation of Preschoolers' Communicative Competence in the Conditions of Inclusive Education

Aim. The goal of the study is to describe the teacher’s corrective work on pre-schoolers’ sound pronunciation that is developed according to the children’s age, physiological and mental norms, and special educational needs. Methods. Four children with special educational needs participated in this experimental study. We used the method of monitoring children’s speech during various activities: play, household activity and teaching (during speech therapy classes and various types of practical language classes). Results and conclusion. Age-related features of pre-schoolers’ speech development have been identified in the study. The reasons and indicators of pre-schoolers’ speech development disorders have been described, and the ways to overcome language disorders have been found. The experimental study tested the effectiveness of articulation exercises in working with children with special educational needs in an inclusive environment, the involvement of psychologists and children’s parents to overcome speech disorders of pre-schoolers, and the use of folklore texts. Originality. In the experimental study, we observed that riddles, proverbs, ditties, tongue twisters, fairy tales, lullabies, nursery rhymes, counting rhymes, and sayings are an effective means of phonetics and articulation work, during both the speech development classes and other classes as well as during walks.

Nursery Rhymes: Its Effectiveness in Teaching of English among Pre-Schoolers

Nursery rhymes play an important role in young children as they help develop their English language. This study investigated the teachers’ perceptions on the use of lyrics and animation of the nursery rhymes in helping pre-schoolers to learn vocabulary skills and spelling of English words as well as improving their grammar knowledge. The study employed a survey design among 48 kindergarten teachers using a Google link form. The preliminary findings indicated that generally the teachers agree that nursery rhymes should be used in the teaching of English as the initial results indicated that preschool children’s acquisition of new words and grammar was significant using nursery rhymes. This shows that nursery rhymes not only motivate pre-schoolers to learn the language but also create a platform to encourage them to be more interactive while listening to the rhymes.

Visualizing Chinese nursery rhymes in contemporary picturebooks: a multimodal perspective

This study investigates how Chinese nursery rhymes are visualized in contemporary picturebooks from a multimodal perspective. The data for case analysis are selected from three Chinese rhyming picturebooks. Based on Jakobson’s (1959) typology of translation, this study regards picturebooks as multimodal texts and examines the adaptation of Chinese nursery rhymes into contemporary picturebooks as a process of intralingual and intersemiotic translations. It first analyzes the modern adaptations of traditional Chinese nursery rhymes in the verbal texts and then discusses the text-image interactions in picturebooks to explore the intersemiotic translation from the verbal to the visual. The research results indicate that the didactical function or political implication of traditional Chinese nursery rhymes is usually weakened or omitted in the intralingual translation, while more creative and amusing narrative rhymes are adapted to tailor for contemporary children’s hobbies and lifestyle. Besides, in the intersemiotic translation between texts and images in picturebooks, flexible and varied methods are employed according to different text-image interplays.

Cortical Tracking of Sung Speech in Adults vs Infants: A Developmental Analysis

Here we duplicate a neural tracking paradigm, previously published with infants (aged 4 to 11 months), with adult participants, in order to explore potential developmental similarities and differences in entrainment. Adults listened and watched passively as nursery rhymes were sung or chanted in infant-directed speech. Whole-head EEG (128 channels) was recorded, and cortical tracking of the sung speech in the delta (0.5–4 Hz), theta (4–8 Hz) and alpha (8–12 Hz) frequency bands was computed using linear decoders (multivariate Temporal Response Function models, mTRFs). Phase-amplitude coupling (PAC) was also computed to assess whether delta and theta phases temporally organize higher-frequency amplitudes for adults in the same pattern as found in the infant brain. Similar to previous infant participants, the adults showed significant cortical tracking of the sung speech in both delta and theta bands. However, the frequencies associated with peaks in stimulus-induced spectral power (PSD) in the two populations were different. PAC was also different in the adults compared to the infants. PAC was stronger for theta- versus delta- driven coupling in adults but was equal for delta- versus theta-driven coupling in infants. Adults also showed a stimulus-induced increase in low alpha power that was absent in infants. This may suggest adult recruitment of other cognitive processes, possibly related to comprehension or attention. The comparative data suggest that while infant and adult brains utilize essentially the same cortical mechanisms to track linguistic input, the operation of and interplay between these mechanisms may change with age and language experience.

The dynamics of exploited marine fish populations and Humpty Dumpty: similarities and differences

Marine fish populations of the global oceans and particularly large‐bodied, continental shelf‐dwelling groundfish species of the North Atlantic, such as cod (Gadus morhua), have been strongly perturbed by over‐fishing, frequently beyond levels that may have altered their capacity to recover. Age and size structure, spatial structure, reproductive potential, and other traits that convey fitness advantages are commonly lost when prolonged and excessive fishing pressure is exerted. Fisheries management protocols implemented to recover collapsed populations have been numerous and varied with all attempting to reduce or eliminate fishing pressure. Such measures, employed singly or in multiple combinations, typically involve quota reductions or fishing moratoria, area closures and other technical measures, as well as enhanced enforcement of fishing practices. A striking geographic pattern exists in the efficacy of such measures to regain lost population attributes and hence recovery. Some regional populations have recovered while others, despite management interventions lasting decades, notably, but not exclusively, those aimed at cod populations of the Northwest Atlantic, have yet to fully recover, an endpoint analogous to the conclusion of the famous nursery rhyme of Humpty Dumpty. Here we examine the dynamics of multiple collapsed populations exhibiting varying responses to recovery initiatives from the perspective of the Humpty Dumpty metaphor.

Research on the Integration of Lingnan Nursery Rhymes into Children's Native Education under the Rural Revitalization Strategy

Research on the Integration of Lingnan Nursery Rhymes into Children's Native Education under the Rural Revitalization Strategy

Introducing spring vocabulary

Exploring words related to spring through storytelling, nursery and action rhymes, and poems.

Acoustic comfort in pediatric noninvasive exam: A study of bedside renal sonography for children

Pediatric renal sonography is a non-radiation exposure and non-invasive procedure to evaluate kidneys and urinary tract structures. It is frequently performed in clinics and wards. Although there is no physical discomfort during ultrasounds, children would still experience agitation or crying due to unfamiliarity with medical environment. To provide comfortable medical experience and improve the quality of healthcare, we design a renal sonography process integrated with acoustic components specific for children. Patients under 7 years old are divided into three groups, under the age of 1, 1–3, and above 3. Pre-recorded music with nursery rhymes and fairy tales is played. Two time points are designed to evaluate acoustic integrated effect, along with preparing phase or real time of sonography starting. Data are collected from three timeframes: before, during, and after the exam. Physiological data will include heart rate, respiratory rate, and O2 saturation. Emotional behavior, such as agitation, crying, and smiling, will be recorded. This study will establish specific acoustic components and suitable intervention timeframe for children of different age groups. By having acoustic comfort, we hope children will have good experiences during sonography exam. As a result, the quality of medical examination and children wellbeing can be achieved.

A Comparative Study of Animal Metaphors in Cantonese and English Nursery Rhymes

Animal metaphors are commonly seen in daily language and often appears in nursery rhymes. With the Great Chain of Being as the theoretical framework, this study deeply analyzes and compares the animal metaphors in 896 Cantonese and English nursery rhymes from the cognitive linguistic perspective by classifying them and interpreting their formed images. It is found that the number of animal metaphors in Cantonese nursery rhymes is much higher than that in English nursery rhymes for Cantonese is a dialect of the Chinese language, which belongs to imagery languages. Besides, although in some way animal metaphors in Cantonese and English nursery rhymes are similar from the perspective of their educational functions, due to the cultural differences between the Cantonese-English ethnic groups, animal metaphors in Cantonese and English nursery rhymes present the cultural characteristics of Cantonese and English respectively in terms of the source domains, their metaphorical connotation and mappings. This study may provide some reference for the translation and inheritance of Cantonese and English nursery rhymes, helping to pass down and communicate the local culture, so as to realize the purposes of creating and spreading nursery rhymes.

Don’t Look Down

Don’t Look Down

Cooking with rhymes

There are many different traditional nursery rhymes and songs that mention or focus on food and/or cooking. This article in EYE's nursery rhymes series looks at how some rhymes encourage cross-curricular learning through cooking activities with an emphasis on physical development.

Review: Slavery, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Review| February 01 2022 Review: Slavery, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam Slavery, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Valika Smeulders, Head of the Department of History; Eveline Sint Nicolaas, Senior Curator of History; Maria Holtrop, Curator of History; Stephanie Archangel, Junior Curator of History. May 18, 2021–August 29, 2021. https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/nl/stories/tentoonstellingen/slavernij Laura van Hasselt, Laura van Hasselt University of Amsterdam Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Paul Knevel Paul Knevel University of Amsterdam Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar The Public Historian (2022) 44 (1): 106–111. https://doi.org/10.1525/tph.2022.44.1.106 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Laura van Hasselt, Paul Knevel; Review: Slavery, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. The Public Historian 1 February 2022; 44 (1): 106–111. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/tph.2022.44.1.106 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentThe Public Historian Search The first impression upon entering the exhibition Slavery in the Amsterdam Rijksmuseum is one of solemnity. The exhibition itself starts with an emotional bang, at least for those who wear headphones: ringing bells from former plantations and nursery rhymes and songs uttering protest against exploitation and lawlessness seem to set the tone. In reality, however, they function as prelude to a series of more traditional, aesthetically pleasing exhibition rooms. The visitors—mostly white—behave accordingly: in silence they look at the exhibited objects, meanwhile focusing on the recommended accompanying audio tour. This solemn silence not only reveals much about the exhibition style of the Rijksmuseum, but almost seems indicative of the way the Dutch treat their contested pasts. Slavery as a topic came rather late to Dutch public history. For a long time, slavery has been seen by many as a purely historical subject, something from a past long gone. In recent... You do not currently have access to this content.

Assessment of autonomic response in 6–12-month-old babies during the interaction with robot and avatar by means of thermal infrared imaging

ABSTRACT Since birth, infants have been immersed in a social environment, often surrounded by artificial-intelligent-agents (AIAs). However, there is a paucity of work on infants’ psychophysiological responses, and their related interest, when interacting with AIAs. Here, the infants’ psychophysiological responses during interactions with an embodied robot and a virtual human/avatar presented on a screen are investigated. The experimental paradigm consists of a robot producing socially communicative gestures to babies as compared to a virtual human producing socially communicative gestures and linguistic interactions, such as linguistic nursery rhymes in American Sign Language. Psychophysiological responses were measured using thermal infrared imaging technology that tracks changes in cutaneous temperature, enabling contactless investigation of human autonomic functions. Crucially, it permits first-time inferences about changes in infants’ psychological, attentional, and emotional engagement in relation to agents and events in the world around them. Thermal signals analysis revealed a statistically significant difference in the infants’ physiological response to robot and avatar interactions indicating important differences in each agent’s ability to engage infants. Understanding infants’ psychophysiological responses to AIAs during the first year of life, which is a crucial period for human learning, lays bare how AIAs may impact infants’ emotional, social, and language learning and higher cognitive growth.

New year moves

The third article in this series on nursery rhymes focusses on physical development, a good way to start the New Year, with lots of ideas to get fit inspired by nursery rhymes.

Contrastive Analysis of Onomatopoeic Use in Nursery Rhymes as Children’s Environmental Sounds Recognition in Japanese and Indonesian

Nursery rhymes play a role in children’s language development and help them recognize and express the environmental sounds or sounds around them. Onomatopoeia or imitation words are often found in nursery rhymes. Every country has a different language, so it has different phonetic sounds to express onomatopoeia. In this research, the author will contrast the onomatopoeic use in Japanese and Indonesian nursery rhymes. The theory and classification of onomatopoeia used in this research are combinations proposed by Akimoto (2002) and Kaneda (1978). This qualitative research used the listening and note-taking methods from Youtube videos. The analysis data used in this research are the referential matching method. The result from the research data shows that in Japanese nursery rhymes, onomatopoeia is the sound of nature, the sound from an object, the sound of a human, the sound of an animal, object condition, object movement, human movement, animal movement, and human emotion are found. Meanwhile, in Indonesian nursery rhymes found, almost all types of onomatopoeia in Japanese are found except for the class of the sound of a human, object movement, and human emotion are not found.

Using Nursery Rhymes and Google Speech Recognition to Raise Learners' Awareness of English Pronunciation in University EFL Courses in Japan

Using Nursery Rhymes and Google Speech Recognition to Raise Learners' Awareness of English Pronunciation in University EFL Courses in Japan