Michael J. A. Howe

Innate talents: Reality or myth?

Talents that selectively facilitate the acquisition of high levels of skill are said to be present in some children but not others. The evidence for this includes biological correlates of specific abilities, certain rare abilities in autistic savants, and the seemingly spontaneous emergence of exceptional abilities in young children, but there is also contrary evidence indicating an absence of early precursors of high skill levels. An analysis of positive and negative evidence and arguments suggests that differences in early experiences, preferences, opportunities, habits, training, and practice are the real determinants of excellence.

Young Musicians' Accounts of Significant Influences in their Early Lives. 1. The Family and the Musical Background

This article reports qualitative findings of an interview study in which 42 students ( aged 10–18 ) from a specialist music school were encouraged to talk about various experiences in their lives which the individual children perceived as having been potentially significant influences on their progress in learning musical instruments. The parents of half the children were also interviewed. Observations concerning the following sources of influence are reported: the family background; sibling influences; listening to music. The insights of children and their parents, which complement and add depth to quantitative findings concerning the biographical precursors of musical excellence, help to provide a rich source of descriptive information about the circumstances in which children become competent young musicians.

Are There Early Childhood Signs of Musical Ability

The parents of 257 children who had all studied a musical instrument but who differed in the extent of their mastery were interviewed in order to investigate the claim that unusual musical expertise is often preceded by early signs in the form of spontaneous musical behaviours. Of the possible early signs that were investigated, only one, singing by the child, was observed at an earlier age in those children who later became the most accomplished young musicians than in the other children. With the other four early signs examined in this study, the age at which the behaviours first occurred did not differ between the most and least competent musicians. The age at which parent and child first listened to music together tended to be lower for the most successful children, and these were more likely than the others to have had a keyboard instrument in their home from an early age.

The Utility of Taking Notes as an Aid to Learning

Summary Does note‐taking by students contribute to the acquisition of knowledge? Taking notes does provide a record of information, but since there are inexpensive alternative methods of reproducing knowledge, the extensive continued use of note‐taking in education can be justified only if learning is facilitated thereby. Much of the published research takes the form of broad comparisons of recall following experimental conditions in which learners took notes or made no notes, and the majority of such studies have produced no evidence for positive effects of note‐taking. However, recent research has shown that in addition to recording information, note‐taking influences learning by (a) ensuring that learners attend to information, (b) providing a version of the information that is particularly valuable to the individual learner, and through (c) direct effects of the activities involved in taking notes. Learning is strongly influenced by the particular note‐taking strategy an individual adopts. It is sugge...

Writing through time: longitudinal studies of the effects of new technology on writing

This paper contributes to the discussion about the effects of new technology on writing by assessing whether or not peoples writing styles and ways of thinking change when new technologies are introduced. The writing styles of the three authors, prolific writers in their own fields, were assessed by comparing materials written by each author over a thirty-year period. During this time there were, for each author, great changes in the ways that they used new technology to help them to write. Nonetheless, the results indicated that, although the writing styles of each author differed from each other, their individual styles were remarkably consistent over time. These results thus suggest that although the new technologies may change the ways that individual writers work, they do not alter the styles of their resulting products.

EARLY SIGNS OF TALENTS AND SPECIAL INTERESTS IN THE LIVES OF YOUNG MUSICIANS

Abstract This article reports findings from an investigation of the childhoods of young musicians which provides indications of musical talent and unusual liking for music in the earliest years of life. Forty‐two students aged 10‐17 attending a highly selective specialist music school were interviewed and encouraged to talk about significant events and experiences in their early musical lives. The parents of half the students were also interviewed. In 50 percent of the children there was some evidence of spontaneous early musical activity, in the form of either singing or picking out tunes on an instrument. However, the students who were most exceptional were no more likely than the others to have displayed special talents at a very early age. In addition, a number of parents reported that their child had shown an unusual degree of interest in music while still very young. The findings have implications concerning the possible existence of innate gifts and talents.

Musical Talent and Individual Differences in Musical Achievement: A Reply to Gagne (1999)

The object of Gagnes (1999) critical commentary is an initial study on 42 individuals (Slaboda and Howe, 1991) which formed part of the preparatory work for a larger and better-designed study on 256 individuals. This later study was reported in a series of journal articles examining, in far more detail than was possible in the 1991 study, the role of practice (Slaboda, Davidson, Howe and Moore, 1996), parents (Howe, Davidson, Moore and Slaboda, 1995; Davidson, Howe, Moore and Slaboda 1996) and teachers (Davidson, Slaboda, Moore and Howe, 1998) in the development of instrumental music achievement.

Problems Experienced by Talented Young Musicians as a Result of the Failure of Other Children to Value Musical Accomplishments.

Eleven of 42 children aged 10 to 17 who participated in an interview study of the early lives of talented young musicians spontaneously remarked on problems they had experienced in connection with the failure of other children of their own age to value or appreciate the importance of musical accomplishments and the learning activities that contribute to expertise in music. The childrens observations illustrate the nature of such problems, and suggest that for talented young people who are specialising in a particular area of expertise, difficulties of this kind may be more widespread and more severe than is generally appreciated.

REPEATED PRESENTATION AND RETENTION OF MEANINGFUL INFORMATION

In a previous experiment it was found that when young adult Ss made repeated attempts to recall verbal information they frequently repeated their earlier errors, despite the fact that they were able to listen to the correct version of the information after each recall attempt. The present study was designed to discover whether the earlier results could be extended to conditions typical of those in which humans acquire verbal knowledge, and retention was repeatedly assessed by a multiple-choice recognition test. Considerable repetition of errors was observed. When Ss made incorrect responses to the same question on two successive sessions, the incorrect choice in the second session was twice as likely to be the same choice made in the first session as it was to be any of the alternatives.

ROLE OF TASK INTEREST IN LEARNING FROM PROSE PASSAGES

Although it is generally assumed that interest has considerable importance in human learning, there is very little empirical evidence on the role of interest. It is suggested that the lack of evidence is largely due to difficulties in defining and manipulating interest in experimental research designs. In the present study Ss were required to read three prose passages of widely differing content. It was found that the contents of each passage were retained more accurately by learners who ranked them high in degree of interest than by Ss who ranked the same passage lower.