Relationships among Young Children's Aural Perception,Listening Condition,and Accurate Reading of Graphic Listening Maps

Abstract

The purpose of our study was to explore relationships among children's aural perception, music listening condition, and the accuracy of children's reading of listening maps. The aural discrimination skills of 41 elementary children were tested using the Intermediate Measures of Musical Audiation (IMMA). The children were then systematically assigned to one of three listening conditions: passive, unstructured active, or structured active. After listening to European art music according to their assigned condition, every child traced a graphic listening map while listening to the music a second time. Results of an ANCOVA with accuracy of map reading as the dependent variable, listening condition as factor, and IMMA as covariate, showed a significant effect for the IMMA [F (1, 37) = 8.86, p < .01], but no significant effect for listening condition. In a separate analysis, IMMA scores were shown to be related to piano experience. When group means for accuracy of map reading were compared by piano experience, children with piano experience had a significantly higher mean accuracy score of 48.25, SD = 18.75 (n = 16) compared to children with no piano experience, M = 32.44, SD = 17.39 (n = 25), t = 2.76, p < .01. Our results support previous research in which investigators found that music experience explained accuracy of music-reading ability in children and adults.

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