This study examines musical episodes occurring in a family with two young children, collected and analysed through the Language Environment Analysis system, interpreting then using Bronfenbrenner's Ecological Systems Theory to understand how the microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem and macrosystem influenced these episodes. The focus was on two…

In this article, the authors adapt the "Family Musicking Framework" (Koops, 2020) for use in exploring teacher-child interactions in early childhood classrooms (birth to age 6). The Family Musicking Framework contextualizes family musical interactions using the paired concepts of musical parenting/parenting musically and practical…

This article uses explores how young children use self-directed spontaneous singing at home as a tool of personal agency. Although researchers are increasingly interested in spontaneous singing that takes place outside formal education and care settings, there remains little research into young children's self-directed singing at home. With…

Defining categories of musical actions in improvisation with young children is challenging due to the spontaneous, creative and emergent nature of interactions. Following a literature review, two new constructs were proposed to circumscribe and classify different types of events in improvisation, Creative Musical Agency (CMA) and Socio-Musical…

Music experience in childhood has beneficial effects on early cognitive and linguistic development. Most children under the age of five experience music every day, with family members. Yet, few studies that have focused on "Parental Musical Engagement" (PME). The issue is there are but few psychometrically standardized measures that…

Children who receive copious amounts of language stimulation from caring adults are likely to develop strong language skills, whereas children who receive limited language stimulation may experience delays. Little is known about the language stimulation strategies that families prefer to use. This mixed-methods study investigated families'…

This study used a quasi-experimental design to test if a small scale intervention improved self-regulation with 94 kindergarten children in Taiwan. The purpose of this study was to draw on the theory of Vygotsky and examine activities that could fit into the class schedule without substantially changing the basic curriculum and would require…

This study aims to investigate the developmental status of rural Chinese children, the extent of interactive parenting they receive, and the relation between the two. A sample of 448 six to eighteen-month-old children and their caregivers were randomly selected from two rural counties in Hebei and Yunnan provinces. According the third edition of…

This research focused on learning conditions in preschool that support multilingual children's linguistic development. The aim of this paper was to study singing activities through the experiences of ten multilingual children in toddler groups (one to three years of age) in eight Swedish preschools. A sociocultural theoretical approach is used to…

There is perhaps no image more maternal and musical than that of a young mother cradling a child to her breast as she softly sings a sweet lullaby. Yet the way that a mother experiences, relates to and renders meaningful the social and musical moment of singing to her children remains silent and hidden in popular and academic discourse. In this…

The impact of music activity on children's motor and cognitive skills has been investigated with music learning, instrument lessons and classroom music. While none have employed natural utterances, singing games or playground/street songs, these musical experiences of childhood are acknowledged as a major platform for child development. The…

The purpose of our study was to compare the effectiveness of two song-teaching methods: holistic and phrase-by-phrase. Thirty-two first-grade children (n = 32) from two music classes in an urban elementary school were taught two folksongs. The first class (n = 16) was taught one song through the phrase-by-phrase method and another song through the…

This paper examines music in the home of a Chinese family in Singapore with specific attention to the children (aged five and seven) of the household: an exploration of what constitutes the lived 'musical' memory of a family enmeshed in the technology and media of a globalised world. The study is part of a larger ethnographic study on the musical…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the musical experiences of preschool cochlear implant users. Research objectives were to examine: (1) musical, social and emotional responses to activities; and (2) whether length of experience with the implant influenced responses. Participants were three prelingually deafened children, age 4,…

Presents initial results of a three-and-a-half year study on early childhood singing development. Empirical data were gathered through longitudinal study of 200 5-year olds and comparative study of 600 children ages 3 to 12. Results from five-year-old sample included a general tendency for vocal pitch to be lower than pitch stimuli. (AJH)