gms | German Medical Science

Introduction: We believe that musical lessons probably offer a holistic possibility to support the development of speech, motor function, emotional, cognitive and social behaviour. Therefore these lessons could support the development in normal hearing children and children with CI. But our hypothesis is, that daily use of music in families with deaf children with CI should be different than in families with same aged normal hearing children.

Patients and Methods: In December 2010, 106 German speaking families with deaf children aged 3–7 years and CI were asked about their daily use of music via questionnaire. In spring 2011 the same questionnaire was used for 66 families with normal hearing children of the same age.

Answers were statistically analysed with the Chi²- and non parametric Mann-Whitney-U-Tests.

Results: The daily use of music (hearing music, singing songs and playing instruments) in both family groups are similar (p=0.52). But the expectations to music lessons are different. Parents with children wearing CI expect improvement of auditive perception (p=0.001), speech development (p=0.03) and attention (p=0.000). Parents with normal hearing children have different expectations: joy about music and music to assist the common development. Answers to questions about changes after about one year of music lessons show no significant differences between both groups of families although answers about the speech development are remarkable. Many parents with CI children indicated that speech development was increased after music lessons but only few parents with normal hearing children indicated the same. In the statistical comparison no significant difference could be found.

Discussion: Daily use of music does not differ in families with normal hearing children and families with CI children. Our hypothesis was not confirmed by our investigation. The expectations for music lessons are different in both groups. Families with deaf children primarily expect from music lessons the same as from therapeutic interventions, namely possibilities to develop perception, speech and concentration. Families with normal hearing children do not have such expectations. This difference shows that musical interventions are as welcome as speech and hearing therapy. It is to confirm whether music lessons have a relationship to speech development. For this investigation more data has to be collected over a longer period of time in which monitored children receive music lessons.