Music Perception Influences Language Acquisition: Melodic and Rhythmic-Melodic Perception in Children with Specific Language Impairment.
Language and music share many properties, with a particularly strong overlap for prosody. Prosodic cues are generally regarded as crucial for language acquisition. Previous research has indicated that children with SLI fail to make use of these cues. As processing of prosodic information involves similar skills to those required in music perception, we compared music perception skills (melodic and rhythmic-melodic perception and melody recognition) in a group of children with SLI (N = 29, five-year-olds) to two groups of controls, either of comparable age (N = 39, five-year-olds) or of age closer to the children with SLI in their language skills and about one year younger (N = 13, four-year-olds). Children with SLI performed in most tasks below their age level, closer matching the performance level of younger controls with similar language skills. These data strengthen the view of a strong relation between language acquisition and music processing. This might open a perspective for the possible use of musical material in early diagnosis of SLI and of music in SLI therapy.
Justus-Liebig-Universität, Gießen, Germany ; Speech and Language Pedagogy and Pathology, Department of Special and Inclusive Education, Faculty of Education, University of Erfurt, Nordhäuser Strasse 63, 99089 Erfurt, Germany.
Stephan
S
Sallat
Freie Universität Berlin, Cluster "Languages of Emotion", Habelschwerdter Allee 45, 14195 Berlin, Germany.
Sebastian
S
Jentschke
D001307:Auditory Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D007804:Language Development; D007805:Language Development Disorders / Q000523:psychology*; D008297:Male; D009146:Music