Children with cochlear implants often suffer from poor prosodic detection and speech-in- noise recognition. As musical training is associated with enhanced perception of both music and speech, music lessons may potentially serve as an avenue for children to improve auditory development of speech perception. This experiment investigates the effectiveness of an online music training course in improving pitch discrimination, affective prosody detection, and speech-in-noise recognition in both normally hearing and hearing impaired 6-10 year old children.
Impact
In our study, we want to see if children benefit from an online music course and learn to hear changes in melody, memorize melodies, understand emotion in speech, and better identify words in a background of noise. What we learn from this study will ultimately help us understand how both normally developing and hearing impaired children acquire the ability to hear musical and non-musical sounds from experience.
Student Experience
Several undergraduate thesis and independent research project students have had the opportunity to take part in piloting, developing and running this study which involved interactions with researchers at the collaborating universities.
Countries
Japan
Impact
Research, Other
Institutional Partner(s)
Future University Hakodate, University of Toronto, Mississauga
Community Partner(s)
Industry Partner(s)
Key Outcomes
Publications, Other
Sponsorship
Foreign
Sponsorship Details
Partially funded by Dr. Takayuki Nakata, Future University Hakodate
