Sounds of Intent in the Early Years: A proposed framework of young children’s musical development

Abstract

Sounds of Intent in the EarlyYears explores the musical development of children from birth to five years of age. Observational evidence has been utilised together with key literature on musical development and core concepts of zygonic theory (Ockelford, 2013) to investigate the applicability of the original Sounds of Intent framework of musical development, intended for children and young people with learning difficulties, as an assessment model for all children in the early years. One hundred and twenty five observations of 58 children (aged 10 weeks to five years) engaging with music were taken in the form of video recordings over a six-month period within an early years children's centre. These observations were analysed using the original Sounds of Intent framework to determine whether the types and levels of engagement with music could be framed within the existing model and to identify areas of potential mismatch. A preliminary framework has been designed from which practitioners and parents can gauge their children's level of musical development in order to support them effectively.

The Sounds of Intent Framework for Autism Intervention: A Conceptual Paper

“…Lastly, adult support in implementing the SoI is suggested as an area of future research (Voyajolu & Ockelford, 2016). Hence, it is hoped that these findings could add value to existing literature of the SoI framework ongoing research.…”

“…This is to ensure the feasibility, practicality and applicability of the researchers' proposed activities in the context of Malaysian culture, local language and school systems which differ from the UK. Voyajolu & Ockelford (2016) pointed out in their article that more research is required on the influence of adult support in the musical engagement. Hence, this study will also observe levels of support provided by the teachers using the prompting technique whilst music activities are conducted during "circle time".…”

“…Their aim was to develop musical abilities among learners with complex needs. Since then, many researchers have employed the SoI framework to establish the relationship between music education and music therapy for learners with learning difficulties (Ockelford, Welch, & Zimmermann, 2002;Ockelford et al, 2005;Voyajolu & Ockelford, 2016;Welch, Ockelford, Carter, Zimmermann, & Himonides, 2009).…”

The challenge of ensuring effective early years music education by non-specialists

“…Furthermore, in the example research findings from the cases provided above, there were positive impacts on young children as a direct result of the expert mentoring received by their generalist early years practitioners. The benefits that were evidenced were: 1 musicalembracing increased singing competency in two separate studies, one in Australia and one in England (Barrett et al, 2020;Welch et al, 2020); and also in general musical behaviours and development (Ockelford, in Knight et al, 2018), as measured by the Sounds of Intent in the Early Years framework (Voyajolu & Ockelford, 2016); and 2 other-than-musicalpositive changes being reported in children's attitudes to and engagement with music (Barrett et al, 2020); in improved reading competency and also aspects of executive functionbeing related to response inhibition, phonological working memory and executiveloaded working memory (Welch et al, 2020); and also social and emotional development (Knight et al, 2018).…”

“…A key strand of the Music for Change evaluation focused on the musical development of forty-six pre-school children over a period of 33 weeks (Knight et al, 2018). The evaluation tool was the Sounds of Intent in the Early Years (SoI-EY) musical development framework (Voyajolu & Ockelford, 2016). Across two years, the children made significant progress in their musical development from being considerably below their age-related-expectations (ARE) to much more in line with their age group.…”