A Case Study of Musical Abilities of Three- and Four-Year-Old Children

Lenze, S. M. (1978). Bulletin of the Council for Research in Music Education, No. 65, 43–47. 

Research Design:
Descriptive
N = 27

Purpose:
The purposes of this study were to determine the following:

• the validity and reliability of evaluation tools designed to obtain information in the areas of pitch, rhythmic, and melodic patterns, melodic contour, and modality
• the range of abilities in response to aural discrimination tasks
• the difference in response of three-year-olds as compared to four-year-olds on aural discrimination tasks
• the difference in the response of boys compared to girls on aural discrimination tasks
• the difference in response of children from enriched music backgrounds compared to children from lesser music backgrounds on aural discrimination tasks.
   

Procedure:
A list of musical tasks was devised on the basis of a study of several early childhood music textbooks. The ten tasks included singing, playing, and responding verbally to "same/different." The children were also given a separate singing test consisting of singing responses, pitch matching, and rhythmic discrimination. The children were tested in twenty-minute sessions at the University of Illinois' Child Development Laboratory. A questionnaire was also completed by parents to gather data on home musical environmental factors and on children's musical behavior outside of school.

Results:
The following observations were made:

• There was a strong positive correlation between singing scores, music discrimination test scores, and child background data.
• The song with minor chords and a stepwise descending pattern at the end was sung more accurately than others. Ascending-descending patterns were easier to identify than either ascending or descending examples. Low-pitch examples were easier to identify than high-pitch examples. There was little difference in the difficulty of identifying rhythmic and melodic, short and long, and ascending and descending patterns.
• There was a negative correlation between age and child data ratings and age and singing scores and a positive correlation between age and music discrimination test scores.
• There was a positive correlation between home musical environment and both singing scores and music discrimination test scores.
• Older children scored higher on the music discrimination test, but younger children scored higher on the singing test.
• No relationship was found between sex and music discrimination scores or sex and singing scores.
• Children from a musical home background scored higher than those from a less musical background.
  
   

The Development of Musical Experience in Children of Pre-School Age

Moog, H. (1976). Psychology of Music, 4, (2), 38–45.

This article combines findings of research studies (primarily German) with the author's own findings. While not a detailed research report, it is included here because of its frequent citation in other studies and the inaccessibility of the German language references.

"The findings described in this paper are based on observations, individual tests, and particularly on tape recordings of the singing of 500 children who were the subjects of the experiments. In addition, the observations and comments of their parents were noted and evaluated" (Moog, p. 38).

Findings:

When a mother listened to music during the last months of pregnancy, the fetus reacted by becoming particularly active.

Beginning about the time of the baby's first smile, soft music of any kind had a calming effect on infants. This change between four and six months of age, when babies begin to turn toward the source of music and listen to it, "often with an unmistakable expression of astonishment and joy" (Moog, p. 39).

High-pitched voices and instruments (such as recorders and glockenspiels) had a soothing effect on babies.

Between four and six months of age, children began to respond to music with clear, repetitive movements, usually made with the whole body, such as bouncing and swaying. These movements were not in time with the music and were seldom synchronized with it, but they were rhythmic within themselves due to their repetitive nature. Between fifteen and eighteen months, about 10% of children began to match their movements to the rhythm of the music for short periods of time.

Shortly after they began overt movements, children began to make vocal sounds—crowing or chuckling—in response to music. Musical babbling—sounds of varied pitch—began in response to singing to the infant. These vocalizations were not diatonic or rhythmic. The intervals were mostly descending, moving in micro-intervals, and the range was about an octave centered around f '.

At eighteen months, children began to want to dance with others.

At about two years of age, children, even lively ones, began to exhibit attentive listening to music for several minutes at a time. They may also respond to music by spontaneously dancing about the room.

Thirty percent of the children aged one to two began to imitate songs they have heard. Children imitated the words of a song before they imitated its rhythm and pitch. (Sixteen percent matched the rhythm and pitch first and began to include the words between the ages of two and three). About 50% of three-year-olds could imitate words, rhythm, and pitch of a whole song more or less correctly.

Less than 50% of children aged three to five made spontaneous movements in response to music, and the variety of these movements also decreased. By the age of six, most children no longer responded to music with repetitive movements. However, there was still a connection between movement and music through learned movements like singing games and dances.

The number of children between the ages of four and six who could match their own movement to the rhythm of music doubled in this time period. Considerable progress was also noted in the length of time a child could maintain this coordination.

When a song was played on an instrument (no words), only about 40% of four-year-olds recognized a song they knew. This rose to 75% by age five.