Music Notation to Improve the Speech Prosody of Hearing Impaired Children

Abstract

This study was initiated to determine whether a treatment program using music notation would improve the verbal rhythmic and intonational accuracy of hearing impaired children, and to determine the degree of transfer to other reading and verbal skills. Thirty-five hearing impaired children, ages 3 through 12 years, participated in a treatment program for 40 consecutive days. Verbal elements included both rhythmic and inflectional patterns presented with progressive complexity. Rhythmic units encompassed quarter-note, quarter-rest, half-note, triplet, and sixteenth-note patterns. Inflectional units consisted of the previous rhythmic patterns presented on two- and three-line staves approximating intonational contours of the English language. During all treatment sessions, children vocalized these patterns at their highest individual verbal level. Daily evaluations assessed cumulative knowledge with newly acquired concepts and, in addition for the older children, the ability to transfer this skill to unfamiliar sentences. Results indicated that, while all children learned a substantial number of rhythmic and inflectional patterns, youngsters capable of reading made the greatest gains in transferring their skill to novel verbal material. It is suggested that the use of music notation written below printed words could be a beneficial visual cue for verbal, rhythmic, and intonational accuracy in reading tasks with this population. For younger children, a more long-term treatment program is suggested to develop initial prosodic skills.