Learning to Listen to the Beat

Abstract

September 2021 The Hearing Journal 47 O ver the past decade, researchers have hinted at a link between hearing, language, and the ability to lock on to the beat of music. For example, individual differences in literacy skills seem to parallel the ability to tap to the beat of a metronome. As we have discussed in previous Hearing Journal articles, there are also indications that the rhythm-language link might precede literacy: studies of 20-30 preschoolers showed that children better able to drum to a steady beat performed better on early literacy tasks and had more precise neural processing of speech (http://bit.ly/HJHearingMatters). Research to date, however, has involved relatively small samples of children, largely due to the practical difficulties of conducting large research studies in developing populations. Bonacina and colleagues recently addressed this limitation in a comprehensive study of beat keeping, language development, and auditory processing in a cohort of over 150 children between the ages of 3 and 5 years old (npj Sci Learn. 2021;6,1-11). The study involved three components. First, children had to drum along to a metronome at two paces: one was roughly a steady walking pace, and the other was a quick pace, such as in a lively piece of music. Then, the children completed a large set of paper-and-pencil tests to evaluate their early language, cognitive, and pre-reading skills. Finally, their auditory-neural responses were measured to multiple speech sounds in quiet and noise. About 40% of the children could lock on to both metronome paces (“Synchronizers”), whereas about 25% could not lock on to either pace (“Non-synchronizers”). The groups were similar in age and nonverbal IQ, and both passed a peripheral hearing screening. Bonacina and colleagues found the following differences between these two groups: