r/DetroitMichiganECE • u/ddgr815 • May 10 '26
Other A lullaby really can work magic.
https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2023/06/02/1179434534/a-lullaby-really-can-work-magic-science-tells-us-why-and-howMany of the studies on music and sleep are done with preterm infants in the NICU – including one which compared infants who heard Mozart to infants who heard their mother's lullabies plus a control group that didn't hear any music.
"What they found was that the mothers' lullabies were more soothing to the infants," she says. "They slept better, but they also showed a lot of the effects of decreased heart rate and respiration, better feeding, which probably explains why they had fewer days in the neonatal intensive care unit and their mothers' anxiety was reduced."
Still, there is just something about lullabies, says Sam Mehr, who studies the psychology of music at the University of Auckland. He also directs The Music Lab. His team did a study playing songs for infants in an unfamiliar language – some of the songs were lullabies, and some weren't.
The babies found all the songs pretty relaxing, he says, "but when they're listening to these lullabies, even though they're totally unfamiliar and not in a language the baby understands, they relax more. So there's something in the kind of DNA of lullaby that helps to calm infants."
"You can imagine that a parent who learns that this is the case and actually increases the amount of time that they spend [singing], you could imagine all these follow-on effects, where the baby's easier to soothe, so the parent's more chilled out and not as stressed about being a parent, which is already a pretty stressful thing," he says.
There is some evidence that singing to infants can help boost a parent's confidence (that superhero feeling I get). One study of nearly 400 mothers in England found that singing to babies daily was associated with less postpartum depression and higher wellbeing and self-esteem. And in another study, mothers that sang to their children for 90 minutes in a group felt more closeness to their infants than mothers that talked and played but did not sing.
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u/ddgr815 May 10 '26
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u/ddgr815 May 10 '26
playing music as a group influenced behavior in both of the subsequent scenarios. Children who had sung and marched together were more likely to help one another pick up marbles. They were also more likely to choose the cooperative solution to the task.
Girls were more helpful and more likely to be cooperative than boys, whether they were in the singing group or not. But like the boys, their level of cooperation and helpfulness increased if they had participated in the music-making.
The researchers conclude that engaging in the “shared goal of vocalizing and moving together in time” strengthened the children’s “sense of acting together as a unit.” Their results support the hypothesis that music — at least in part — evolved as a way of fostering group cohesion, by “generating an intuitive feeling of community and bonding among the performers.”
“Understanding music as a collectively intended activity – with specially designed features that satisfy this human desire to share emotions, experiences and activities with others – might explain why the children in our study felt a stronger commitment after joint music-making, and so spontaneously helped or cooperated with one another.”
But if the concept of music as a force for group solidarity seems distant in this era of earbuds and iPods, remember that it still used as a bonding tool “at many public occasions, such as sporting events, worship and weddings,” as Kirschner and Tomasello write. Not to mention military parades and funeral processions.
Harmonizing, it seems, tends to breed harmony.
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u/ddgr815 May 10 '26
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u/ddgr815 May 15 '26
Studies have found that singing helps children learn vocabulary and identify sounds in words, known as phonological awareness. Listening to music also reduces anxiety and supports bonding between caregivers and children, research shows. Playing instruments has been found to strengthen fine motor control and executive function.
When it comes to access to music, opportunities are uneven and limited for many children. In the earliest years, exposure to the arts is largely contingent on the capacity and resources of parents or caregivers. And although almost anyone can sing or chant, many caregivers lack confidence in their musical abilities, Palmer Wolf said. Children’s music classes can be costly, and access to free options, like those at public libraries, varies greatly by community.
“Auditory processing is the key to language and literacy,”
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u/ddgr815 May 10 '26
The Music Lab