The Association between Music and Language in Children: A State-of-the-Art Review

Abstract

Music and language are two complex systems that specifically characterize the human communication toolkit. There has been a heated debate in the literature on whether music was an evolutionary precursor to language or a byproduct of cognitive faculties that developed to support language. The present review of existing literature about the relationship between music and language highlights that music plays a critical role in language development in early life. Our findings revealed that musical properties, such as rhythm and melody, could affect language acquisition in semantic processing and grammar, including syntactic aspects and phonological awareness. Overall, the results of the current review shed further light on the complex mechanisms involving the music-language link, highlighting that music plays a central role in the comprehension of language development from the early stages of life.

Home Musical Activities Boost Premature Infants’ Language Development

“…On the contrary, disadvantaged families suffering the challenges of premature birth might particularly benefit from support in an area of parenting that is part of the spontaneous parenting repertoire, with individual differences. By suggesting that an enriched home musical environment has direct implications for supporting word comprehension and gestural communication, the results are consistent with research that has been recently accumulating on how musical activities can enhance language development in infants [50,58] and also contribute to communication [47,84], as well as vocabulary, numeracy, attentional and emotional regulation in young children [85] When considering the measured language outcomes separately, our analysis suggested that the development in CDI-UK Comprehension was predicted by the Music@Home general factor over and above the influence of age and independently from general enrichment in interactions with infants and other variables, which included infant demographics. Our analysis revealed a more nuanced pattern for CDI-UK Gesture, for which, besides the Music@Home general factor and the expected infant age (corrected) effect, gestational age at birth also contributed to predicting gesture scores, more explicitly, the lower the gestational age, the lower the gestural communication, but still not showing delays when comparing with norms.…”

“…Specifically, the dependent variables derived from the the CDI were the Comprehension and Gestures scales (e.g., [74]). Based on previous research [48][49][50], we expect that home musical activities will be associated with language outcomes over and above the effect of other enrichment activities.…”

“…Among activities used to engage with infants and young children, musical interaction may present a particularly opportune medium for communicating with premature infants and supporting language development. Indeed, recent research has shown a positive relationship between informal musical interactions at home and early language development in typically developing populations [46][47][48][49][50]. In early infancy, such as between 4 and 6 months of age, language patterns may be perceived as melodies and reflected in infants' initial sound utterances [51,52].…”

“…Although there is abundant literature investigating the causes underlying delayed language development in preterm infants compared with full-term infants, the literature is scant when considering the ways in which parents of preterm infants may support their language development at home, in everyday settings post-discharge from the NICU. Given that ID music and home musical activities have been shown to facilitate language acquisition in infants born at term [48][49][50], the present study will investigate the effects of musical enrichment on early language developmental outcomes. Given the importance of demographic and family variables in predicting language development, we will also test the effect of other enrichment interactions at home and individual differences in birth variables and parental stress on language acquisition.…”

The Neuroscience of Music Processing and Music Interventions for Mental Illness

“…Some recent research has found that music and language processing share many neural processes [25], and this review will summarize current findings with a focus on the relationship between language and musical processing. Anatomical regions responsible for language include Broca's area in the inferior frontal gyrus, Wernicke's area in the superior temporal gyrus, parts of the middle temporal gyrus, and some gyri in the parietal lobe (inferior parietal and angular gyrus) [26].…”