• Korean Journal of Child Studies
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• v.35 no.6
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• pp.25-46
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• 2014

The purposes of this study were to demonstrate whether a Physical Rhythm Education Program can alter children's rhythm perception and rhythm expression. To solve the questions posed by this study, 60 5-year-olds and 60 6-year-olds (a total of 120 children) from one child-care center in Kyunggi-province were selected. An experimental group participated in the Physical Rhythm Program which was carried out 10 times over the course of 4 weeks. The results indicated that the Physical Rhythm Program positively improved the children's rhythm perception and rhythm expression. In particular, the Physical Rhythm Program was more effective in producing effects upon six-year-olds' rhythm perception and rhythm expression (verbal, instrumental and physical expression) than five-year-olds' rhythm expression (instrumental and physical expression).

• Journal of Music and Human Behavior
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.1-10
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• 2004

Being engaged in the musical tasks needs cognitive skills to perceive musical sound, organize them into meaningful unit, store them in the memory and retrieve them when needed. These skills are also required for academic tasks indicating that there is positive correlation between skills for musical and academic tasks. Based on these findings, the study purported to examine whether the developed sessions can enhance cognitive skills which is composed of auditory information skills, which is composed of perceiving sounds, organizing them into groups based on the existing information or organization pattern, and short-term memory skills. Eighteen elementary students in 4, 5, and 6th grades have participated in the study. The study has administered Music Cognitive Skills Test(MCST) before and after implementing music therapy sessions. The MCST consisted of five parts, first one measuring the rhythm imitating skills, second, measuring the melodic imitation skills, third, measuring discriminative skills in identifying higher pitch, fourth, measuring discriminative skills in identifying identical chords, and lastly, measuring the tone retention skills. The results indicated that there was statistical difference between the pre and post test in rhythm and melody imitation skills. Because reproduction of perceived rhythm patterns requires memory skills, imitating patterns are considered cognitive skills. Also melody is defined adding spatial dimension to the rhythm which is temporal concept. Being able to understand melodic pattern and to reproduce the pattern also requires cognitive skills. The subjects have shown significant improvement in these two areas. In other areas, there were definite increase of scores, however, no significant differences. The study also explores interpretation of these results and also observed consistencies among the participants in completing the musical tasks.