Anthony Decuir

RELATION BETWEEN MUSICAL APTITUDE AND INTELLIGENCE AMONG MENTALLY RETARDED, ADVANTAGED, AND DISADVANTAGED SUBJECTS

The purpose of this study was to investigate differences in scores of 59 mentally retarded adults (mild, moderate, severe, or profound), 133 advantaged, and 130 disadvantaged (low income) children in Grades 1, 2, 3 on the Primary Measures of Music Audiation. Test-retest reliabilities for the Tonal and Rhythm subtests were .81 and .86, respectively, for the retarded group. Analysis of variance indicated that the mildly retarded children performed significantly better than other groups of retarded children on these two tests. 2 × 3 analyses of variance indicated that third graders from both advantaged and disadvantaged groups performed significantly better than the first or second graders on both subtests and that advantaged children performed significantly better than the disadvantaged. However, disadvantaged children made greater gains, especially for third graders, than the advantaged.

A Musical Profile for a Sample of Learning-Disabled Children and Adolescents: A Pilot Study:

31 learning-disabled children and adolescents completed the Pitch, Loudness, Rhythm, Time, and Tonal Memory subtests of the Seashore Measures of Musical Talents. Results indicated that the Seashore test did not discriminate between subgroups of these learning-disabled children. However, differences were found in percentile equivalents between these learning-disabled and normal individuals. These data should be interpreted with caution due to the small size of this sample and the spread of percentiles presented by Seashore.