Family involvement in music impacts participation of children with cochlear implants in music education and music activities

Abstract

Objective Children with cochlear implants (CIs) participate in musical activities in school and daily lives. Considerable variability exists regarding the amount of music involvement and enjoyment. Using the Music Engagement Questionnaire-Preschool/Elementary (MEQ-P/E), we wanted to determine patterns of musical participation and the impact of familial factors on engagement. Methods Parents of 32 children with CIs (16 preschool, 16 elementary) completed a questionnaire regarding the musical involvement of their child with an implant and a normal-hearing (NH) sibling (if one existed). We compared CI children's involvement to that of their NH siblings as well as across groups of children with and without CIs. Correlations between parent ratings of music importance, demographic factors, and involvement of CI and NH children were conducted within and across groups. Results No significant differences were found between children with CIs and NH siblings, meaning children from the same family showed similar levels of musical involvement. When compared at the same developmental stage, no significant differences were found between preschool children with and without CIs. Parents who rated the importance of music as “low” or “middle” had children (NH and CI) who were less involved in music activities. Children whose parents rated music importance as “high” were involved in monthly to weekly music activities with 81.25% reporting daily music listening. Conclusion Despite a less-than-ideal auditory signal for music, preschool and school-aged CI children enjoy and are involved in musical experiences. Families who enjoy and spend a greater amount of time involved in music tend to have children who also engage more actively in music.

Music Participation Among School-Aged Children Who Are Hard of Hearing

“…Finally, in this study, parent participation in music significantly affected participation in music for children who are HH. This is consistent with research that shows children with CIs are more likely to consider music participation important if their family also places high value on music (Driscoll et al, 2015). Research on a different cohort of children who are HH who have less musically involved parents might therefore yield different outcomes.…”

“…They therefore lack a reference to what music sounds like with NH and may develop compensatory music perceptual strategies. This has been argued to be the case with children who use CIs, who show higher rates of music enjoyment than adults who use CIs (Driscoll et al, 2015). Another possibility is that parents of children who are HH may be conscious of the importance of auditory input and are therefore vigilant about encouraging their child to participate in music.…”

“…This study found that 46% of children who are HH attended concerts. A recent study showed that, among school-aged children with CIs, 37.5% took weekly music lessons (Driscoll et al, 2015). Gfeller et al (1999) found that 20% of school-aged children who use CIs participate in music lessons.…”

Music@Home: A novel instrument to assess the home musical environment in the early years

“…This aspect has been previously addressed in studies looking to describe the musical home environment of infants and young children [ 28 ], [ 30 – 31 ], [ 43 ], [ 64 – 65 ] or exploring music-related parental attitudes in relation to music educational outcomes [ 41 ], [ 66 – 69 ]. These studies have shown that parents’ whose children participate in music classes usually have positive beliefs towards the general educational benefits and significance of music practice [ 66 ], [ 68 ], and that parental attitudes can be positively associated with children’s musical attainment and motivation [ 41 ], [ 67 ], [ 69 ]. Furthermore, the majority of parents of preschoolers who expressed positive beliefs about the benefits of music education also reported high frequency of singing and listening to music with their children [ 31 ].…”

A Preliminary Study of the Effects of Attentive Music Listening on Cochlear Implant Users’ Speech Perception, Quality of Life, and Behavioral and Objective Measures of Frequency Change Detection

“…Third, there is a lack of control intervention, which is important to examine effects of procedural learning (Jiam et al, 2019). Fourth, attentive listening appears to be feasible for adult patients, but it is a challenge for pediatric patients, who may need familial involvement and more interesting training methods to boost patients' engagement (Driscoll et al, 2015). Finally, the FCDT test only involved pure tones rather than complex stimuli.…”