Spontaneous Singing and Musical Agency in the Everyday Home Lives of Three- and Four-Year-Old Children

Dean, Bronya

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-17791-1_7

Cited by 8 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 32 publications

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“…Although the overall study was based on a qualitative thematic analysis (see Dean, 2019), this paper is largely concerned with a quantitative analysis of the data. The quantitative analysis was carried out to gauge the extent of the children's singing and to what extent different singing behaviours occurred.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Spontaneous singing in early childhood: An examination of young children’s singing at home

Dean

2020

Research Studies in Music Education

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Spontaneous singing is widely acknowledged as an important part of young children’s everyday musical experience. However, its fleeting and often private nature makes it difficult to study. Research into young children’s singing at home frequently relies on data gathered through parental reporting, and studies are often limited to small sample sizes. In this article, I explore the nature, extent and contexts of spontaneous singing among 15 three- and four-year-old children at home. Continuous audio recording was used to collect naturalistic data during the children’s normal everyday routines. This innovative method resulted in data that could be analysed quantitatively to provide a comprehensive overview of spontaneous singing in young children’s everyday home lives that has so far been missing from the literature. Analysis showed that all the children sang spontaneously. The singing behaviours they displayed were similar to those described in the literature, but contrary to some of the literature, the most prevalent singing behaviours were improvisatory. Spontaneous singing occurred during many everyday activities; however, the strongest influence on singing was found to be the social context in which it took place. The children used different ways of singing when interacting socially or when playing on their own, with most singing occurring when children were on their own, potentially unnoticed by adults.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Spontaneous singing in early childhood: An examination of young children’s singing at home

Dean

2020

Research Studies in Music Education

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“…The use of music listening for emotional self-regulation—mood enhancement, distraction, and relaxation—is widespread from adolescence through old age (Cohrdes, Wrzus, Frisch, & Riediger, 2017; Lonsdale & North, 2011; Saarikallio & Erkkilä, 2007). Toddlers and preschoolers use music for emotional self-regulation, whether singing spontaneously during solitary play (Dean, 2019) or in the crib after separation from family members (Sole, 2017). Because infants’ self-regulation abilities are relatively limited, parents’ role is critical in regulating infant moods or emotions.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Familiar songs reduce infant distress.

Cirelli¹,

Trehub²

2020

Developmental Psychology

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Parents commonly vocalize to infants to mitigate their distress, especially when holding them is not possible. Here we examined the relative efficacy of parents' speech and singing (familiar and unfamiliar songs) in alleviating the distress of 8-and 10-month-old infants (n = 68 per age group). Parent-infant dyads participated in three trials of the Still Face procedure, featuring a 2-min Play phase, a Still Face phase (parents immobile and unresponsive for 1 min or until infants became visibly distressed), and a 2-min Reunion phase in which caregivers attempted to reverse infant distress by 1) singing a highly familiar song, 2) singing an unfamiliar song, or 3) expressive talking (order counterbalanced across dyads). In the Reunion phase, talking led to increased negative affect in both age groups, in contrast to singing familiar or unfamiliar songs, which increased infant attention to parent and decreased negative affect. The favorable consequences were greatest for familiar songs, which also generated increased smiling. Skin conductance recorded from a subset of infants (n = 36 younger, 41 older infants) revealed that arousal levels were highest for the talking reunion, lowest for unfamiliar songs, and intermediate for familiar songs. The arousal effects, considered in conjunction with the behavioral effects, confirm that songs are more effective than speech at mitigating infant distress. We suggest, moreover, that familiar songs generate higher infant arousal than unfamiliar songs because they evoke excitement, reflected in modestly elevated arousal as well as pleasure, in contrast to more subdued responses to unfamiliar songs.

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“…Estimates of music data, such as ambient music, singing by adults, or infant vocal production of music, are not provided; it is necessary to listen to the audio file to identify and study such music indicators. Although originally developed for language research, the use of LENA technology is also valuable for gaining insight into infants’ and young children’s early musical experiences (Costa-Giomi, 2016; Costa-Giomi & Benetti, 2017; Costa-Giomi & Sun, 2016; Dean, 2015; Fausey & Mendoza, 2018).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Infant Vocal Imitation of Music

Benetti

Costa‐Giomi

2019

Journal of Research in Music Education

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Infant vocal production has been studied mainly from the perspective of language development. We studied it from the perspective of singing development by analyzing a 15-month-old’s imitations of songs. The infant wore a recording device that yielded a continuous, 16-hr audio recording of all the sounds produced by him and around him throughout the day. We listened to the audio file and identified instances in which his unprompted vocalizations resembled songs he had heard earlier. One imitation was recognized by his father, who then sang the song himself and engaged in imitative turn taking with the infant; the other imitation went unnoticed by his parents. Perceptual and acoustic analyses of the imitations and the song models showed that the infant imitated critical music features of the songs, including pitches, intervals, and rhythms. We discuss the use of new technologies for the study of singing development in infancy; such technologies facilitate the collection of spontaneous vocalizations that may go unnoticed by parents and make it possible to trace connections between music environment opportunities and specific singing outcomes in infants.

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Spontaneous Singing and Musical Agency in the Everyday Home Lives of Three- and Four-Year-Old Children

Cited by 8 publications

References 32 publications

Spontaneous singing in early childhood: An examination of young children’s singing at home

Spontaneous singing in early childhood: An examination of young children’s singing at home

Familiar songs reduce infant distress.

Infant Vocal Imitation of Music

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