The University of Montreal has conducted a fresh study which found babies stayed calm for twice as long when they were hearing to a song as compared to when they were listening to someone talk.
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Professor Isabelle Perez of the University’s Center for Research on Brain Music and Language, explained, “Emotional self-control is obviously not developed in infants, and we believe singing helps babies and children develop this capacity”.
The study involved 39 healthy infants, aged between 6 and 9 months. In fact, in children and adults, listening to music as a form of entertainment may result in foot-tapping, head-nodding or even drumming to the beat.
The study found that babies did react to the entertainment and got carried away by the music, proving that they do have the mental capacity to enjoy the entertainment. The infants were exposed to Turkish speech – both adult-directed and baby-talk – and music recordings.
As for the lack of any “significant distinction” between baby talk and regular speech, study first author Mariève Corbeil with the University of Montreal noted that the finding “came as a surprise”. This is a common facial expression of distress. Lullabies not only calm them down but also help in feeding them and keeping them to sleep. The team then played the recordings until the infants had a “cry face”, which was defined as lowered brows, raised cheeks, mouth opening and lip corners that are pulled to the side. When the infants started to cry, the parents were asked to calm down their babies by talking to them. What was more surprising was that the Turkish play song outlasted the French play song, as French was the language the babies were familiar with. The researchers used recordings to ensure comparable performances for all children.
While the youngsters were in a calm state, their parents sat out of view behind them and researchers played either a song or the speech. Turkish songs were selected so that the babies will have a reaction that was not influenced by sensitivity to their parents’ voices.
“Our findings leave little doubt about the efficacy of singing nursery rhymes for maintaining infants’ composure for extended periods”, Peretz said.
The researchers said the findings were important because mothers, particularly those in western countries, speak much more often than they sing to their children, missing out on the emotion-regulatory properties of singing.
And while this certainly applies to all families, singing and playing music could be especially helpful for parents who face socioeconomic or emotional challenges.
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This can lead to frustration and even anger, when the parent fails to appease the child, and in worst case scenarios it can also result in neglect or physical abuse. “In danger mother and father inside the purview of social service companies might be inspired to play vocal music to infants and, higher nonetheless, to sing to them”.
