Singing Abilities and Phonological Awareness in 9- to 12-Year-Old Children

Abstract

Music and language seem to be associated strongly in the early years of development. We do not know at which time point in development this association weakens. Therefore, this longitudinal study investigated whether singing abilities (song reproduction) are associated with phonological awareness in secondary school children. Furthermore, we tested whether singing ability can predict the development of phonological awareness over a time course of two years in 9- to 12-year-old children. We found that song learning abilities were significantly correlated with phonological awareness scores at all three test waves across the two-year duration of the study. Beyond that, it was possible to predict phonological awareness over time with singing abilities. The model that – in addition to the time of the test wave - only employed song learning abilities and IQ as predictors showed the best fit to the data and represents a parsimonious explanatory model of the development of phonological awareness in 9- to 12-year old children and its relationship with singing ability.