The Use of Music with Young Children to Improve Sustained Attention during a Vigilance Task in the Presence of Auditory Distractions

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine the use of music to sustain attention of young children during conditions of auditory distractions. Kindergarten students (N=76) were randomly assigned to one of four conditions/groups: (a) spoken story with no distraction, (b) spoken story with distraction, (c) musical story with no distraction, musical story with distraction. Participants were asked to listen to the story and to identify specific "actions" and "animals" that were presented (i.e., spoken or sung) within the story. A tally of correct responses (child pointed to correct actions/animals at appropriate times) was recorded during the listening task. Observations of participants' behaviors while listening were also made by the experimenter using narrative recording procedures. A one-way ANOVA was computed to assess the difference in mean scores across the four experimental conditions. Significant results were found. Further analysis employing a Tukey post hoc/multiple comparisons test revealed significant differences between the spoken story with distraction condition and the musical story with distraction condition. These statistical results, along with the observations of listening behaviors, were discussed in terms of providing suggestions for future research and in lending support to the use of music with young children to improve vigilance within educational and clinical settings.

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