Music Lessons Boost Kids’ Social and Emotional Growth

Researchers from the University of Southern California, Los Angeles examined the relationship between formal music education received as a kid and the ensuing development of socioemotional, rhythmic, and pitch-matching abilities in a recent study that was published in the journal PLOS One. They compared 83 kids who were enrolled in after-school music, sports, or no instruction programs in a long-term case-control cohort study.

The ability to match pitches was shown to be superior among participants in music instruction programs compared to their peers in the control cohort. These results imply that, although having a small overall impact, long-term formal music education programs can have a positive impact on some areas of children’s socioemotional development.

Context
Instrumental skills and music theory are taught systematically in formal music education. Prior studies have indicated that it can help pupils become more proficient in pitch-matching—the capacity to replicate the pitch of an external audio cue—and rhythmic entrainment—the capacity to harmonize internal rhythms with those sensed externally.

According to Kuther (2022), learning music can improve social and emotional skills. Pitch-matching and rhythmic entrainment have been shown to play social functions in the formation of social bonds, successful communication, the formation of collective identities, and collaboration.

Various literary works have examined the connections between education in music and cognitive abilities or self-worth. Regrettably, these studies tend to focus on individual music tutoring rather than the effects of group-based music education programs, which are often included in after-school activities for students.

In order to fill in these knowledge gaps, the current study will evaluate the following: 1. Do kids who participate in after-school training programs have different abilities when it comes to pitch-matching, socioemotional skills, and rhythmic entrainment than kids who don’t? 2. How do rhythmic entrainment, pitch matching, and socioemotional outcomes relate to each other?

Concerning the study
The study’s data came from a seven-year cohort study of kids from the greater Los Angeles area in the United States (US) of America who were between the ages of five and eight (mean = 6.81). Three cohorts of participants made up the education programs: sports (soccer or swimming; n = 28), music (Youth Orchestra; n = 26), and control (no after-school activities; n = 29).

Pitch-matching tests, sharing activities, assessments of cognitive and emotional entrainment, and assessments of rhythmic entrainment were among the research instruments. In order to assess pitch-matching, participants had to copy the pitch of ten melodies, each lasting five to nine notes, performed by vocally trained experimenters. Pfordresher and Brown’s (2007) approaches were applied to compare the audio recordings of the experimenters and participants utilizing pitch-matching (hertz [HZ]) comparisons, with scores ranging from 0 to 1.

We assessed rhythmic entrainment in both “social” and “alone” settings. In the first, individuals were given a drum and had to beat it in time with a recorded audio beat (either 120 or 180 beats per minute [bpm]). In the latter, participants drummed to a preset rhythm with a trained investigator. Using Kirschner and Tomasello’s (2009) methodology, accuracy and synchronization were assessed and given a score between 0 and 1.

A version of the dictator game was used to gauge the children’s willingness to share ten to fifteen stickers they had been given with an unidentified individual in a picture, providing no personal gain. The Index of Empathy for Children and Adolescents (IECA), the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test of theory of mind (Eyes Test), and the Wechsler Abbreviated Scale of Intelligence (WASI-II) subsets were used to measure empathy (state, trait, and theory of mind) and cognitive factors, respectively.

Using linear mixed effects models and Principal Component Analysis (PCA), statistical differences between cohorts were calculated.

Study results
The music cohort participants differed significantly from the other cohort participants based on pitch-matching analysis; on average, they scored 0.13 points higher than the sports group and 0.26 points higher than the controls. There was no discernible impact of time (years) on this criterion.

At the beginning of the trial (year 1), rhythmic scores did not vary between cohorts; nevertheless, all groups exhibited annual gains in scores. Improvements in the music group were more noteworthy.

Socioemotional tests showed that the sports group shared the most, with the music group following closely behind (9% less), and the controls doing the worst. All groups did, however, demonstrate annual gains in these abilities (~7.2% annual growth).

The results of the Eyes test improved over time, however the majority of empathy tests first produced confusing findings. Once again, the music group saw the most improvements.

In conclusion
In contrast to earlier investigations, the current study did not reveal improvements in pitch-matching with time. This is probably because the singing activity used in this study was more complicated than in earlier studies. On the other hand, over time, empathy and, most significantly, rhythmic entrainment both improved.

With the exception of sharing and some empathy tasks, individuals in the music cohort were found to perform better than their peers in the majority of tests. Collectively, these results demonstrate the positive effects of formal music instruction on kids’ socioemotional growth, with the advantages’ magnitude varying according to how closely the subject matter resembles music.

For more information: Long-term music instruction is partially associated with the development of socioemotional skills, Public Library of Science (PLoS), https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0307373