The impact of a music education program on meta-musical awareness, logical-mathematical, and notational skills in preschoolers

2021 ◽  
pp. 025576142110272
Author(s):  
Oriana Incognito ◽  
Laura Scaccioni ◽  
Giuliana Pinto

A number of studies suggest a link between musical training and both specific and general cognitive abilities, but despite some positive results, there is disagreement about which abilities are improved. This study aims to investigate the effects of a music education program both on a domain-specific competence (meta-musical awareness), and on general domain competences, that is, cognitive abilities (logical-mathematical) and symbolic-linguistic abilities (notational). Twenty 4- to 6-year-old children participated in the research, divided into two groups (experimental and control) and the measures were administered at two different times, before and after a 6-month music program (for the experimental group) and after a sports training program (for the control group). Children performed meta-musical awareness tasks, logical-mathematical tasks, and emergent-alphabetization tasks. Non-parametric statistics show that a music program significantly improves the development of notational skills and meta-musical awareness while not the development of logical-mathematical skills. These results show that a musical program increases children’s meta-musical awareness, and their ability to acquire the notational ability involved in the invented writing of words and numbers. On the contrary, it does not affect the development of logical skills. The results are discussed in terms of transfer of knowledge processes and of specific versus general domain effects of a musical program.

2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (Vol.10, No.3) ◽  
pp. 294-299
Author(s):  
Xénia Melánia BREDA ◽  
Dana Marieta FODOR ◽  
Robert VERDEŞ ¹, ◽  
Dorina TĂRTĂMUŞ ◽  
Dorin-Alexandru MUREŞAN ◽  
...  

Introduction & objectives: Although controversial, the Mozart effect, consisting of an improvement in cognitive abilities in healthy persons, has started to be studied in the case of patients with various neurological, even neurodegenerative diseases (dementia, treatment-refractory epilepsy). There are few data on the Mozart effect in Parkinson’s disease, but the positive results reported for other neurological pathologies have led us to study this subject. The aim of this study is to compare the results of the Mozart effect associated with specific kinetic treatment in the rehabilitation of Parkinson’s disease and the effect of standard kinesiotherapy, results reflected in the impact on the degree of disability, emotional state and quality of life. Material and method: This was a prospective case-control study, comprising patients with Parkinson’s disease, Hoehn & Yahr stages I-III, included in a motor neurorehabilitation program through the project “The power of hope for patients with Parkinson’s disease” Cluj-Napoca. The patients were assigned to two groups, a control group with specific physiotherapy and the other group receiving the same specific kinetic treatment associated with the Mozart effect, for 2 hours daily, over 14 consecutive days. The patients were assessed using the Schwab & England scale (for the degree of dependence) and the PHQ-9 scale (for depression) before and after therapy. Results: After 2 weeks of therapy, the patients in the study group had much more obvious, statistically significant improvements in both scores. Conclusions: Mozart’s music, as an adjuvant intervention to specific kinetic treatment in patients with Parkinson’s disease, had a beneficial effect, ameliorating the degree of disability and emotional status.


Author(s):  
Zi-Yu Liu ◽  
Zaffar Ahmed Shaikh ◽  
Farida Gazizova

A modern school deals with a generation of students who were born and grown up in a digital environment and require other teaching methods. Changes in the technological and social conditions of modern society need new professional skills, which are often called “21st century skills”. These skills should be devel-oped starting from the primary school, as they are psychological and behavioural, rather than practical. Game-based learning and gamification are effective means of such skills development. The use of video games in teaching practice is studied multifaceted, along with formats and requirements of educational game, methods for effectiveness assessment, and the effect of games on students. The controver-sial nature of game-based learning effect on students require deeper research, as the increase in motivation and learning efficiency cannot be disputed, as well as the negative impact of a long gaming on cognitive abilities, emotional state and social skills of students. The study tested both an increase in the motivation and attraction of school students for the learning process, and the impact on the prac-tical results of information assimilation. There was conducted a survey on the re-sults of the application of game training to determine the motivation and attraction of students. Likewise, we counted time, spent by the study and control group, for mastering the main educational material and the post-class study of game content and the educational material it presents. A comparative test was conducted on the results of educational material comprehension to determine the effectiveness of the methodology in mastering knowledge. The group, with game-based learning and gamification applied, showed an increase in motivation and attraction to learning, students paid additional efforts for assimilating the material studied, and also showed significantly higher learning outcomes compared to the control group.


2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 545-552
Author(s):  
Nathalia De Oro ◽  
Maria E Gauthreaux ◽  
Julie Lamoureux ◽  
Joseph Scott

Abstract Background Procalcitonin (PCT) is a biomarker that shows good sensitivity and specificity in identifying septic patients. Methods This study investigated the diagnostic accuracy of PCT in a community hospital setting and how it compared to that of lactic acid. It explored the impact on patient care before and after PCT implementation regarding costs and length of stay. Two comparative groups were analyzed using an exploratory descriptive case–control study with data from a 19-month period after PCT implementation and a retrospective quasi-experimental study using a control group of emergency department patients diagnosed with sepsis using data before PCT implementation. Results Post-procalcitonin implementation samples included 165 cases and pre-procalcitonin implementation sample included 69 cases. From the 165 sepsis cases who had positive blood cultures, PCT had a sensitivity of 89.7%. In comparison, lactic acid's sensitivity at the current cutoff of 18.02 mg/dL (2.0 mmol/L) was 64.9%. There was a 32% decrease in median cost before and after PCT implementation, even with the length of stay remaining at 5 days in both time periods. Conclusions There was a significant decrease after the implementation of PCT in cost of hospitalization compared to costs before implementation. This cost is highly correlated with length of stay; neither the hospital nor the intensive care unit length of stay showed a difference with before and after implementation. There was a positive correlation between lactic acid and PCT values. PCT values had a higher predictive usefulness than the lactic acid values.


Author(s):  
Khadega M. Badraldien

The results of several studies have shown that children with learning difficulties suffer from low selfesteem compared to normal children, which may affect their integration with their normal peers, social adaptation, and their academic superiority in subsequent years. Positive education is one of the modern strategies in education which is intended to focus on the positive and desirable behavior of the child rather than focusing on the negative or bad behavior. The present study aimed to find out the effectiveness of a program based on the strategy of positive educationin the development of self-esteem for children who suffer from learning difficulties. The study used the pre-academic skills scale to diagnose and sort children with learning difficulties and the self-esteem scale to determine the level of appreciation for children with learning difficulties for themselves before and after the implementation of the program. Overall, the results of the study indicated that the positive education program helped in developing children’s self-esteem and appreciation for themselves. The results showed that children of the experimental group had better selfesteem than the control group, and the positive education program had a significant impact on the development of self-confidence and self image. The results also indicated that the experimental group was better in integration and social interaction than the control group. The study recommended using the strategy of positive education not only with normal children but also with those with learning difficulties. The study also recommended that parents' and teachers' awareness of the importance of positive education and its impact on the growth of the child's personality and abilities should be enhanced. 


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matías E. Rodríguez-Rivas ◽  
Adolfo J. Cangas ◽  
Daniela Fuentes-Olavarría

Stigma toward mental disorders is one of today's most pressing global issues. The Covid-19 pandemic has exacerbated the barriers to social inclusion faced by individuals with mental disorders. Concurrently, stigma reduction interventions, especially those aimed at university students, have been more difficult to implement given social distancing and campus closures. As a result, alternative delivery for programs contributing to stigma reduction is required, such as online implementation. This paper reports the results of a controlled study focused on an online multi-component program on reducing stigma toward mental illness that included project-based learning, clinical simulations with standardized patients and E-Contact with real patients. A total of 40 undergraduate students from the Universidad del Desarrollo in Santiago, Chile, participated in the study. They were randomly divided between an intervention and control group. The intervention group participated in the online multi-component program, while the control group participated in an online educational program on cardiovascular health. We assessed the impact of the program by using the validated Spanish-language versions of the Attribution Questionnaire AQ-27 and the Questionnaire on Student Attitudes toward Schizophrenia with both groups, before and after the intervention. In addition, an ad hoc Likert scale ranging from 0 to 5 was used with the intervention group in order to assess the learning strategies implemented. Following the intervention, the participants belonging to the intervention group displayed significantly lower levels of stereotypes, perception of dangerousness, and global score toward people with schizophrenia (p < 0.001). In addition, participants presented lower levels of dangerousness-fear, avoidance, coercion, lack of solidarity, and global score (p < 0.001). The control group displayed no statistically significant differences in the level of stigma before and after the evaluation, for all of the items assessed. Finally, the overall assessment of each of the components of the program was highly positive. In conclusion, the study shows that online programs can contribute to reducing stigma toward mental disorders. The program assessed in this study had a positive impact on all the dimensions of stigma and all of the components of the program itself were positively evaluated by the participants.


2011 ◽  
Vol 26 (S1) ◽  
pp. s83-s83 ◽  
Author(s):  
E.A. Raj ◽  
K. Sekar

The impact of natural disasters on individuals is substantial. Among the affected population in any disaster, children are identified as the most vulnerable group along with women, aged and disabled people. An estimated 77 million children under 15, on average, had their lives severely disrupted by a natural disaster or an armed conflict, each year, between 1991 and 2000 (Plan UK, 2003). Children are most affected since they loose the familiar environment, loss of parents, witness death of their loved ones, fear of reoccurrence of the disaster event. The impact of disaster on children of different age group is multiple times greater than that of the adults. This leads to various psychological problems in children (Dave et al., 2003). Disaster preparedness, through care givers, is one among the ways to reduce the distress of individuals followed by any disaster because it reduces the vulnerability factor that minimizes the impact of any disaster on the individual. A disaster preparedness program with special reference to psychosocial aspects was developed and implemented among the school children through teachers in Kanniyakumari District, Tamil Nadu, India, one of the severely affected areas in Tsunami. The current attempt was to standardize a disaster preparedness module focusing on preparing children to deal with their psychosocial issues before and after disaster in an effective manner. The outcome of disaster preparedness input through teachers and its reach out to the students was determined through an experimental research. The results reveal that the teachers and students from the experimental group gained significantly more knowledge on psychosocial disaster preparedness after implementation of the program in comparison to control group where the program was not implemented. The implications of the study points out the need to integrate psychosocial component of disaster preparedness in to the broader Community Based Disaster Preparedness (CBDP) programs.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Soojin Ahn ◽  
Youngjae Choi ◽  
Woohyeok Choi ◽  
Young Tak Jo ◽  
Harin Kim ◽  
...  

Abstract BackgroundAlcohol use disorder (AUD) is a common psychiatric comorbidity in schizophrenia, associated with poor clinical outcomes and medication noncompliance. Most previous studies on the effect of alcohol use in patients with schizophrenia had limitations of small sample size and a cross-sectional design. Therefore, this study aimed to use a nationwide population database to investigate the impact of AUD on clinical outcomes of schizophrenia.MethodsData from the Health Insurance Review Agency database in South Korea from January 1, 2007 to December 31, 2016 was used. Among 64,442 patients with incident schizophrenia, 1,598 with comorbid AUD were selected based on the diagnostic code F10. We performed between- and within-group analyses to compare the rates of psychiatric admissions and emergency room (ER) visits and medication possession ratio (MPR) with control patients having schizophrenia matched for the onset age, sex, and observation period.ResultsThe rates of psychiatric admissions and ER visits decreased after the diagnosis of AUD in both groups; however, the decrease was significantly greater in patients with comorbid AUD compared to the control group. While the case group showed an increase in MPR after the diagnosis of AUD, MPR decreased in the control patients. The rates of psychiatric admissions, ER visits and MPR were worse in the schizophrenia group with comorbid AUD both before and after the diagnosis of AUD.ConclusionsClinical outcomes were worse in the comorbid AUD group than in the control group before and after the diagnosis of AUD. Considering that patients with schizophrenia with comorbid AUD had poorer clinical outcomes even before the diagnosis of AUD, schizophrenia with comorbid AUD could be a distinct subtype of schizophrenia.


2001 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 74-78 ◽  
Author(s):  
DM Olson ◽  
CO Borel ◽  
DT Laskowitz ◽  
DT Moore ◽  
ES McConnell

BACKGROUND: Patients in intensive care units are often sleep deprived, yet little research exists on the impact of nursing care on promoting sleep. OBJECTIVES: To determine if implementing a "quiet time" protocol to reduce external environmental stimuli is associated with increased frequency of sleep among patients in a neurocritical care unit. METHODS: Patients were observed 8 times each day before and after implementation of a protocol in which environmental sounds and lights were decreased from 2 AM to 4 AM and from 2 PM to 4 PM. Data collected at 2:45 AM, 3:30 AM, 2:45 PM, and 3:30 PM on patients with scores of 10 or greater on the Glasgow Coma Scale were analyzed. A total of 2975 observations were made on a total of 239 patients: 1446 observations on 118 patients in the control group and 1529 observations on 121 patients in the intervention group. RESULTS: The percentage of patients observed asleep was significantly higher during the months the quite-time period was implemented than during the control period before the intervention was started. The increase in sleep behavior was associated with decreased sound and light levels achieved during the quiet time. Patients observed during the intervention period were 1.6 times more likely to be asleep during the quiet time than were patients observed during the control period (P < .001). CONCLUSIONS: A concentrated effort by staff to reduce environmental stimuli at discrete preset intervals increases the likelihood of sleep during scheduled quiet time in the neurocritical care unit.


Author(s):  
Tracy Morse ◽  
Elizabeth Tilley ◽  
Kondwani Chidziwisano ◽  
Rossanie Malolo ◽  
Janelisa Musaya

Diarrhoeal disease in children under five in low income settings has been associated with multiple environmental exposure pathways, including complementary foods. Conducted from February to December 2018 in rural Malawi, this before and after trial with a control used diarrhoeal disease as a primary outcome, to measure the impact of a food hygiene intervention (food hygiene + handwashing) relative to a food hygiene and water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) intervention (food hygiene + handwashing + faeces management + water management). The 31-week intervention was delivered by community-based coordinators through community events (n = 2), cluster group meetings (n = 17) and household visits (n = 14). Diarrhoeal disease was self-reported and measured through an end line survey, and daily diaries completed by caregivers. Difference-in-differences results show a 13-percentage point reduction in self-reported diarrhoea compared to the control group. There were also significant increases in the presence of proxy measures in each of the treatment groups (e.g., the presence of soap). We conclude that food hygiene interventions (including hand washing with soap) can significantly reduce diarrhoeal disease prevalence in children under five years in a low-income setting. Therefore, the promotion of food hygiene practices using a behaviour-centred approach should be embedded in nutrition and WASH policies and programming.


2009 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 185 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. E. Kelley ◽  
J. R. Gibbons ◽  
S. E. Pratt ◽  
R. L. Smith ◽  
C. J. Mortensen

The effects of exercise on follicular development in mares have not been well established; however, a combination of exercise and heat stress can negatively affect embryo recovery rate in mares. The purpose of this research was to examine the effects of exercise, independent of heat stress, on follicular development in mares. One thoroughbred and 12 quarter horse mares, aged 3 to 15 years, were used in this study. Mares were assigned to the control group or exercised at 0700 h, 6 days a week, as follows: warmed up 5 min at a walk for 3 m s–1 and then exercised 30 min, 9 m s–1 for 10 min, 13 m s–1 for 5 min, 9 m s–1 for 5 min, 13 m s–1 for 5 min, and 9 m s–1 for 5 min. Exercised mares were given a 1-month conditioning period. Rectal temperatures were recorded immediately before and after exercise. The mean rectal temperature of mares increased by 0.85°C during exercise, whereas control mares under the same environmental conditions did not experience temperature increases. Individual mares underwent a daily transrectal ultrasound examination with a 7.5-MHz linear rectal probe to monitor follicular development. Estrous cycles were normalized to 17 days for linear follicular growth analysis. Exercise had a significant impact on follicular growth at deviation, with a greater diameter of the largest (P < 0.05) and second largest (P < 0.01) follicles in exercised v. control mares (Table 1). Additionally, growth rate of the second largest follicle was greater in the exercised group (P < 0.01). Deviation was observed in 13 of 14 cycles in control mares, whereas in exercised mares, it was clear in only 11 of 16 cycles (χ2, P = 0.086). Time of deviation was defined as the day when a difference in the growth rate between the dominant and largest subordinate follicle of a wave was first observed. The largest subordinate follicle either declined in growth rate or regressed. At Day –5 (relative to ovulation), exercised mares had significantly greater follicle diameters in both the largest and second largest follicle (P < 0.05). Exercised mares had double ovulations in 4 of 16 cycles when compared with control mares, which had double ovulations in 1 of 14 cycles. No differences were found between groups in the length of the estrous cycle or ovulatory follicular diameter. Exercised mares exhibited larger diameter follicles and an increased growth rate of the largest subordinate follicle, suggesting that exercise delayed deviation. Further research is needed to assess the impact of exercise, independent of heat stress, on fertility. Table 1.Follicle dynamics in exercised v. non-exercised mares


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