Music@Home: A novel instrument to assess the home musical environment in the early years

Abstract

The majority of children under the age of 5 appear to show spontaneous enjoyment of singing, being exposed to music and interacting with musical instruments, but whether variations in engaging in such activities in the home could contribute to developmental outcomes is still largely unknown. Critically, researchers lack a comprehensive instrument with good psychometric properties to assess the home musical environment from infancy to the preschool years. To address this gap, this paper presents two studies that describe the development and validation of the Music@Home questionnaire, which comprises two versions: Infant and Preschool. In Study 1, an initial pool of items was generated and administered to a wide audience of parents (n = 287 for the Infant, n = 347 for the Preschool version). Exploratory factor analysis was used to identify different dimensions comprising the home musical environment of both infants and pre-schoolers, and to reduce the initial pool of items to a smaller number of meaningful items. In Study 2, convergent and divergent validity and internal and test-retest reliability of the new instrument were established, using data from a different sample of participants (n = 213 for the Infant, n = 213 for the Preschool version). The second study also investigated associations between the Music@Home and musical characteristics of the parents, such as their musical education and personal engagement with music. Overall, the Music@Home constitutes a novel, valid and reliable instrument that allows for the systematic assessment of distinct aspects of the home musical environment in families with children under the age of 5. Furthermore, the Infant and Preschool versions of the Music@Home present differential associations with musical characteristics of the parents opening a new area of inquiry into how musical exposure and interaction in the home may vary across different developmental stages.

The German Music@Home: Validation of a questionnaire measuring at home musical exposure and interaction of young children

“…The present study revealed positive associations between the two subscales of the Gold-MSI (Musical Training and Active Engagement) and the general factor and most subscales of the Music@Home Infant and Preschool questionnaires. The results are in accordance with the results by Politimou and colleagues [34] regarding the Infant version and only partly in accordance regarding the Preschool version as in the English sample only Active Engagement but not Musical Training correlated with the Music@Home scores. Overall, it seems that musical engagement of the child is influenced by the general level of parents' musical activities and involvement with music, which is in accordance with previous research [44].…”

“…In order to explore whether the factor structure of the German Music@Home questionnaires was similar to the factor structure of the original English versions, we applied the same analysis to the German data as Politimou et al [34] applied to the English sample.…”

“…The CMRBQ comprises eight factors of which seven focus on the child's behaviour (Attention & Emotion, Vocalizations, Moving, Daily Routines, Requests, Taking Turns, Creativity) and the eighth factor evaluates Parent Music Activities. Additionally, in 2018 Cogo-Moreira and Lamont [33,34] introduced the Exposure to Music in Childhood Inventory, a questionnaire which was developed to be suitable for children and assess their exposure to musical activities and behavior. The questionnaire comprises two factors: the first factor covers personal musical experiences such as music listening, home musical environment and the impact of television and the internet, whereas the second factor covers social elements such as playing an instrument, active and public music activities and performing [33].…”

Survey of the Home Music Environment of Children with Various Developmental Profiles

“…-parent of a 14-month-old child with typical development "Singing songs and playing musical games makes my daughter light up, even more so when those around her engage." -parent of a two-year-old child with Down syndrome Everyday parent-child musical experiences, like musical games and lullabies, are common in early childhood (Politimou et al, 2018). A growing body of research suggests that parent-child musical interactions may support dyadic attachment by promoting joint attention and emotional engagement (Creighton et al, 2013;de l'Etoile, 2006;O'Gorman, 2006;Perkins et al, 2018;Persico et al, 2017).…”

“…The behavioral phenotypes and developmental delays associated with different disabilities may impact parent-child interactions and relationships (Spiker et al, 2002). However, despite the ubiquity of musical experiences in parent-child play (Levitin et al, 2004;Politimou et al, 2018), little is known about whether musical experiences differ for families of children with atypical development and whether or not musical experiences relate to parent-child attachment across families of children with different developmental profiles. In the current study, we examine parent-reported musical experiences of young children with and without developmental disabilities and their relationship with parentchild attachment.…”