- ICH GCP
- US Clinical Trials Registry
- Clinical Trial NCT04200794
Group Music Practice Enhances Development (OC)
Formal String Instrument Training in a Class Setting Enhances Cognitive and Sensorimotor Development of Primary School Children
Study Overview
Status
Conditions
Intervention / Treatment
Detailed Description
This 2-year longitudinal study compared cognitive and sensorimotor development of two groups of children. Both groups received two music courses of 45 minutes per week in a class setting (maximum 20 children per class), given by professional musicians.
The intervention groups (n=34) learned to play string instruments "Orchestra in Class", the control groups (n=35) followed the standard Swiss school curriculum, with "sensitization to music" lessons, lacking focused instrumental practice.
Children who received protocolled extracurricular music lessons before or during the study, were excluded from the analyses.
The groups were compared at baseline (T0) after one year (T1) and after two years (T2) using standardized psychometric tests, evaluating cognitive and sensorimotor functions as well as tests on musicality.
Music practice, covering a wide and diverse field of skills and abilities, from sensorimotor to cognitive activities at the highest level, is a real driving force for development. Widely distributed regions in the brain, which support all these functions, are trained and better coordinated as a result of this practice. This provokes changes in the morphology and function of the brain. Consequently, practicing music regularly brings benefits that go far beyond musicality. The results of various studies indicate that children who practice music show increased verbal memory, verbal intelligence, reading, visual-spatial processing, executive functions, attention, logical reasoning, and according to some authors even better mathematics or even IQ and social skills.
Available evidence of beneficial musical practice effects on cognitive child development predominantly concerns children of parents with a high socioeconomic and educational background [10] and typically results from private lessons. Additionally, most of the time, the child is interested to learn a musical instrument, inducing a motivational bias. Evaluation of beneficial transfer effects restrains in general to a limited number of capacities or skills and randomized controlled trials (RCTs) with active control groups are scarce.
Here, the investigators compared children who intensively practiced different string instruments in a class setting within a specific Orchestra in Class (OC) program, to peers in parallel classes that received the same amount of musical instruction, also within an entire class, but lacking focused training on a complex musical instrument. Entire existing classes were assigned randomly to the OC and the Control programs (cluster randomization). The study took place in public primary schools in popular neighborhoods in the Geneva area, avoiding confounding music effects with effects of socioeconomic background.
The investigators anticipated that cognitive functions strongly involved in musical practice like working memory, attention, information processing, cognitive flexibility and abstract reasoning, as well as fine sensorimotor function would provoke enhanced positive transfer effects in the OC group as compared to the control group.
Study Type
Enrollment (Actual)
Phase
- Not Applicable
Contacts and Locations
Study Locations
-
-
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Geneva, Switzerland, 1206
- School of Health Sciences Geneva; HES-SO University of Applied Sciences and Arts Western Switzerland
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Participation Criteria
Eligibility Criteria
Ages Eligible for Study
Accepts Healthy Volunteers
Genders Eligible for Study
Description
Inclusion Criteria:
- The experimental group will include students from 2 classes 7P HarmoS (1st year of research) and 8P HarmoS (2nd year of research) who participate in the "Orchestre en classe" program in a public primary school in the vicinity of Geneva.
- The Control group will include students from 2 classes 7P (1st year of research) and 8P (2nd year of research) who do NOT participate in the "Orchestre en classe" program, in the same and a nearby public primary school in the vicinity of Geneva.
HarmoS: primary school education system in French-speaking Switzerland
Exclusion Criteria (both groups)
- hearing deficits;
- development disorders
- epilepsy
- other severe health or neurological problems
- non-consent of the parents or the child
- children who have taken music lessons outside the school curriculum before or during the study will be excluded from the study
Study Plan
How is the study designed?
Design Details
- Primary Purpose: BASIC_SCIENCE
- Allocation: RANDOMIZED
- Interventional Model: PARALLEL
- Masking: NONE
Arms and Interventions
Participant Group / Arm |
Intervention / Treatment |
---|---|
EXPERIMENTAL: musical instrumental training
Bi-weekly musical string instrument training in a group setting, over 24 months, provided by professional string instrument teachers
|
Learning to play a string instrument in a group setting (school class)
Other Names:
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ACTIVE_COMPARATOR: sensitization to music
Bi-weekly sensitization to music in a group setting, over 24 months, involving listening, playing small percussive instruments and choir singing, provided by professional school music teachers
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sensitization to music via listening, theory, moderate practice on small percussive instruments and choir singing in a group setting (school class)
Other Names:
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What is the study measuring?
Primary Outcome Measures
Outcome Measure |
Measure Description |
Time Frame |
---|---|---|
Working memory change
Time Frame: 24 months
|
Changed scores at a backward digit span task (WISC-R; Wechsler, 2005).
|
24 months
|
Executive function change
Time Frame: 24 months
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Changed scores at attention tasks, cognitive flexibility tasks and speed of information processing tasks (D2 Test of Attention; Brickenkamp and Zillmer, 1998);Children's Color Trails Test (CCTT; Llorente, 2003) Higher scores at attention tasks, cognitive flexibility tasks and speed of information tasks processing (D2 Test of Attention; Brickenkamp and Zillmer, 1998); Children's Color Trails Test (CCTT; Llorente, 2003) .
|
24 months
|
Change in abstract thinking (Matrices subtest of the WISC-IV (Wechsler, 2003))
Time Frame: 24 months
|
Changed scores at a matrix reasoning task
|
24 months
|
Secondary Outcome Measures
Outcome Measure |
Measure Description |
Time Frame |
---|---|---|
Changed sensorimotor functioning
Time Frame: 24 months
|
Changed scores atall 4 subtests of the Purdue Pegboard task (Lafayette, 1999), involving manual dexterity and bimanual coordination
|
24 months
|
Collaborators and Investigators
Sponsor
Collaborators
Investigators
- Principal Investigator: Clara James, PhD, School of Health Sciences Geneva
Study record dates
Study Major Dates
Study Start (ACTUAL)
Primary Completion (ACTUAL)
Study Completion (ACTUAL)
Study Registration Dates
First Submitted
First Submitted That Met QC Criteria
First Posted (ACTUAL)
Study Record Updates
Last Update Posted (ACTUAL)
Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria
Last Verified
More Information
Terms related to this study
Keywords
Other Study ID Numbers
- James62Ra&D
Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)
Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?
IPD Plan Description
IPD Sharing Time Frame
IPD Sharing Access Criteria
Study Data/Documents
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Individual Participant Data Set
Information comments: The data of this study are deposited on a YARETA, a FAIR digital solution for long-term preservation of research data for all Geneva Universities (https://yareta.unige.ch). DOI: 10.26037/yareta:dhglarpzdfcgzefx4pky7sua3m
Drug and device information, study documents
Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product
Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product
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