Eun Cho

In recent years, there has been an upsurge of research on music and the developing brain. As brain imaging technology becomes more sophisticated, neuroscientists have been able to gain many insights into the developing brain as it perceives and processes musical information. Yet, there is still a fair amount of “misunderstanding, misapprehension, and misapplication” :5–11, p. 6, 2011) of neuroscientific research in the arts and humanities, as well as in education. In this chapter, we offer a critical review of neuromusical research conducted with children aged 0–8. The chapter is divided into four parts: a brief description EEG and MRI, two brain and the main imaging techniques used with young children; a review of imaging studies published in the past decade concerning music and young children; the main criticisms associated with the works, coming primarily from scholars in the humanities, arts, and education fields; Implications for research and practice in early childhood.

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to disrupt our lives in unimagined ways, families are reinventing daily rituals, and this is likely true for musical rituals. This study explored how parents with young children used recorded music in their everyday lives during the pandemic. Mothers of child aged 18 months to 5 years living in the United States played the role of home DJ over a period of one week by strategically crafting the sonic home environment, based on resources provided by the authors, in response to their children’s mood and state. Using a newly developed data collection tool, inspired by the Experience Sampling Method, a total of 197 episodes were collected about children’s engagement with recorded music. Findings showed that while mothers utilized music to fulfill various emotional needs, they tended to use it to maintain or reinforce their child’s positive mood rather than to improve a negative mood. Also, mothers’ reports suggested various ways that young children engaged with music, being aligned with the multimodal nature of their musical experiences. Lastly, mothers reported that their strategic approaches to use recorded music seemed to help their children feel less distressed and happier, and this, in turn, aided in the reduction of some of the burdens associated with parenting.