Singing to infants matters: Early singing interactions affect musical preferences and facilitate vocabulary building (original) (raw)
Related papers
Journal of Research in Music Education, 2009
This study investigated infant listening preferences for two versions of an unfamiliar Chinese children's song: unaccompanied (i.e., voice only) and accompanied (i.e., voice and instrumental accompaniment). Three groups of 5-, 8-and 11-month-old infants were tested using the Headturn Preference Procedure. A general linear model analysis of variance was carried out with gender and age as the between-subjects variables and listening time to the two renditions (unaccompanied, accompanied) as the withinsubjects variable. Results indicated a clear preference for the unaccompanied version of the song in all age groups.
The impact of the home musical environment on infants’ language development
Infant Behavior & Development, 2021
There is strong evidence that musical engagement influences children's language development but little research has been carried out on the relationship between the home musical environment and language development in infancy. The current study assessed musical exposure at home (including parental singing) and language development in 64 infants (8.5-18 months). Results showed that the home musical environment significantly predicted gesture development. For a subgroup of infants' below 12 months, both parental singing and overall home musical environment score significantly predicted word comprehension. These findings represent the first demonstration that an enriched musical environment in infancy can promote development of communication skills.
Across demographics and recent history, most parents sing to their infants and toddlers daily
2021
Music is universally prevalent in human society and is a salient component of the lives of young families. Here, we studied the frequency of singing and playing recorded music in the home using surveys of parents with infants (N = 945). We found that most parents sing to their infant on a daily basis, and the frequency of infant-directed singing is unrelated to parents' income or ethnicity. Two reliable individual differences emerged, however: (1) fathers sing less than mothers, and (2) as infants grow older, parents sing less. Moreover, the laer effect of child age was specific to singing and was not reflected in reports of the frequency of playing recorded music. Last, we meta-analyzed reports of the frequency of infant-directed singing and found lile change in its frequency over the last 30 years, despite substantial changes in the technological environment in the home. These findings, consistent with theories of the psychological functions of music, in general, and infant-di...
International Journal of Music in Early Childhood
Primary caregivers throughout the world provide infants with life-sustaining care such as nutrition and protection from harm as well as life-enhancing care such as affection, contingent responsiveness and mentoring of various kinds. They nurture infants musically by means of one-on-one (i.e. infant-directed) singing accompanied by movement in some cultures and by visual gestures in others. Such singing, which is acoustically and visually distinct from solitary (i.e. self-directed) singing, is effective in engaging infants and regulating their mood and arousal. The repetition and stereotypy of caregivers’ performances contribute to their memorability and dyadic significance. Caregivers’ singing also influences infants’ social engagement more generally. Once infants become singers, their songs play an important role in social interaction and emotional self-regulation. Although caregivers sing to infants with playful or soothing intentions, their performances highlight the temporal and...
Infants' responsiveness to fathers' singing
Music Perception, 2001
Fathers were recorded singing a song once to their infants and once in the absence of their infants. Adults readily identified fathers' infant-directed renditions and rated them as more rhythmic, loving, and appropriate for infants than the infant-absent renditions. Unlike mothers, however, fathers did not consistently raise the pitch of their infant-directed versions. Moreover, infants showed no preference for infant-directed over infant-absent versions unless the infant-directed versions were higher in pitch. Nevertheless, infants showed greater visual attention when listening to fathers' singing than to mothers' singing. The results confirm that a distinctive infant-directed style is used by singing fathers as well as mothers, that pitch height is a salient dimension of songs for infant listeners, and that fathers' singing in general is highly engaging to infant listeners.
Infants' preferential attention to sung and spoken stimuli
Caregivers and early childhood teachers all over the world use singing and speech to elicit and maintain infants’ attention. Research comparing infants’ preferential attention to music and speech is inconclusive regarding their responses to these two types of auditory stimuli, with one study showing a music bias and another one indicating no differential attention. The purpose of this investigation was to study 11-month-old infants’ preferential attention to spoken and sung renditions of an unfamiliar folk song in a foreign language (n = 24). The results of an infant-controlled preference procedure showed no significant differences in attention to the two types of stimuli. The findings challenge infants’ well-documented bias for speech over nonspeech sounds and provide evidence that music, even when performed by an untrained singer, can be as effective as speech in eliciting infants’ attention.
Infants help singers of familiar songs
Infants are highly selective in their help to unfamiliar individuals. For example, they offer more help to partners who move synchronously with them rather than asynchronously and to partners who interact with them in a " nice " rather than " mean " manner. Infant-directed song and speech may also encourage infant helping by signaling caregiver quality. In the present study, we investigated the effect of infant-directed song and recitation on 14-month-old infants' subsequent helpfulness and proximity-seeking in relation to unfamiliar performers. During a 2.5-minute exposure phase, infants sat on their caregiver's lap opposite an experimenter who sang " The Ants Go Marching " (song condition), recited the lyrics (recitation condition), or remained silent while parents read them a book (baseline condition). After the exposure phase, infants participated in a series of helping tasks that necessitated the return of objects dropped " accidentally ". Infants in the song and recitation conditions helped more than those in the baseline condition, but their helping of singers was moderated by song familiarity. Specifically, the extent of help directed to singers correlated positively with song familiarity. Singing (and to some extent, recitation) also encouraged infants to seek proximity with the experimenter. The findings indicate that rhythmic song and recitation by an unfamiliar adult foster infant affiliative behavior, but familiar songs may have special social importance.
Infants' responsiveness to maternal speech and singing
Infant Behavior & Development, 2004
Infants who were 6 months of age were presented with extended audiovisual episodes of their mother's infant-8 directed speech or singing. Cumulative visual fixation of their mother's image and initial fixation times were longer 9 for maternal singing than for maternal speech. Moreover, movement reduction, which may signal intense engage-10 ment, accompanied visual fixation more frequently for maternal singing than for maternal speech. The stereotypy 11 and repetitiveness of maternal singing may promote moderate arousal levels, which sustain infant attention, in 12 contrast to the greater variability of speech, which may result in cycles of heightened arousal, gaze aversion, and 13 re-engagement. The regular pulse of music may also enhance emotional coordination between mother and infant. 14
Speech vs. singing: infants choose happier sounds
Frontiers in Psychology, 2013
Infants prefer speech to non-vocal sounds and to non-human vocalizations, and they prefer happy-sounding speech to neutral speech. They also exhibit an interest in singing, but there is little knowledge of their relative interest in speech and singing. The present study explored infants' attention to unfamiliar audio samples of speech and singing. In Experiment 1, infants 4-13 months of age were exposed to happy-sounding infant-directed speech vs. hummed lullabies by the same woman. They listened significantly longer to the speech, which had considerably greater acoustic variability and expressiveness, than to the lullabies. In Experiment 2, infants of comparable age who heard the lyrics of a Turkish children's song spoken vs. sung in a joyful/happy manner did not exhibit differential listening. Infants in Experiment 3 heard the happily sung lyrics of the Turkish children's song vs. a version that was spoken in an adult-directed or affectively neutral manner. They listened significantly longer to the sung version. Overall, happy voice quality rather than vocal mode (speech or singing) was the principal contributor to infant attention, regardless of age.