First Tones: Artistic Communal Practices for 4 and 5 Year Old Children

Summary

This project aims to develop therapeutic communal music interventions to support the mental health of preschool-aged children, identifying the psychological and neural mechanisms underlying these effects and comparing brain responses to communal versus non-communal music. The central hypothesis is that group musical practice will strengthen mental health indicators, promoting a sense of belonging and stimulating brain areas associated with reward. Communal singing interventions are economically viable and have demonstrated significant benefits in several populations. The research intends to fill gaps in the literature by identifying psychological mechanisms underlying the benefits of music and developing an assessment tool for the sense of belonging in preschoolers. Innovation also lies in exploring the emerging concept of communal music. The study will involve 30 children between the ages of 4 and 5, divided into an intervention group and a control group. Pre- and post-intervention assessments over a 10-week period will include behavioral, psychiatric, brain connectivity, and brain activity measures. In summary, this project seeks to develop accessible communal music interventions to enhance the mental health of 4- and 5-year-old children.

Our central hypothesis is that communal musical practice improves mental health markers in our sample by promoting a sense of belonging and differentially activating putative reward regions in the brain. By enhancing the sense of belonging and generating feelings of reward, we anticipate that the behavioral and psychiatric symptoms experienced by the target population will be attenuated. Our hypothesis was partially formulated based on recently obtained pilot data suggesting that communal music has protective effects against negative affect caused by ostracism, as well as literature on communal singing in other populations. The rationale for this proposed project is that understanding the therapeutic value of communal musical practice and identifying the mechanisms by which this occurs is likely to provide a strong scientific foundation for new strategies to support the mental health of at-risk groups and potentially reduce health disparities within these populations.

Conditions

• Mental Health

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Communal singing

The intervention group will participate in communal music sessions over a period of 10 weeks, once a week, after school. During this time, children will engage in age-specific communal music interventions, and sessions will be recorded on video.

BEHAVIORAL

Drawing

The control group will participate in drawing sessions over a period of 10 weeks, once a week. During this time, children will engage in artistic drawing activities while listening to the same music worked on in the intervention group, without, however, singing them together.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Federal University of Mato Grosso

  collaborator OTHER

• Universidade Federal do ABC

  collaborator UNKNOWN

• Harvard University

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Mayron Piccolo, PhD · Harvard University

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

PREVENTION

Masking

DOUBLE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

4 Years

Max Age

6 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2024-02-26

Primary Completion

2024-12-19

Completion

2024-12-19

Countries

• Brazil

Study Locations