Effectiveness of Musical Training in Children From Low Income Families
Condition: Child
Study type: Interventional

Summary: 
      This study aims to examine the effectiveness of musical training in promoting happiness and
      quality of life of preschool children from low-income families.

      Participants in the experimental group will attend a weekly 1-hour musical training lesson
      for 12 weeks conducted by the Music Children Foundation. While participants in the waitlist
      control group received the same training after the experimental group had completed the
      intervention.
    

Detailed description: 
      Children from low income families generally suffer from hard conditions,such as poor living
      conditions, inadequate nutrition, and delay in accessing health care services. Such problems
      may made children suffer from developmental problems and malnutrition and to have a lower
      level of intelligence and difficulties in language comprehension, which may not only have
      profound impacts on children's physical well-being, but on their psychological well-being as
      well. Musical training is considered to have potential for promoting psychological well-being
      among children mostly because music is found to be important to a child's early psychological
      development. A growing number of educators and researchers suggest that, of all the stages of
      life, infancy may be the time when music has the most important impact on an individual.
      Babies hear language long before they are able to comprehend it. The quality and the quantity
      of what is unconsciously absorbed in infancy relates directly to later development. Musical
      training has been used for various purposes such as improving language development,
      self-expression, memory skills, concentration, social interaction, fine motor skills,
      listening, problem-solving, teamwork, goal setting, and coordination. More importantly, when
      a child learns to sing and play music, other areas of development - creativity, family
      bonding, self-esteem, confidence, emotional development - are also positively impacted.

      Nevertheless, although musical training is popular and is considered to be a beneficial
      intervention in the promotion of psychological well-being, longitudinal studies that examine
      the efficacy of music-making in children from low-income families are limited. Importantly,
      there is to date no study that examines the effects of musical training on enhancing the
      psychological well-being among these children. There is an imperative need for rigorous
      empirical scrutiny of the effectiveness of musical training in promoting the psychological
      well-being of children from low-income families. Therefore, the aim of this study is to
      examine the effectiveness of musical training in promoting happiness and quality of life of
      preschool children from low-income families.
    

Intervention name(s): musical training
Intervention type(s): Behavioral
Intervention description(s): The subjects in the experimental group will receive weekly one-hour lessons on musical training for 12 weeks, conducted by the Music Children Foundation.
Allocation: Non-Randomized
Intervention model: Parallel Assignment
Masking: Single (Outcomes Assessor)
Primary purpose: Supportive Care