Secondary abstract: |
Music and speech consist of sound, acoustic undulation, and contain structural patterns of pitch, duration and magnitude. Processing both music and prosodic patterns take place in some joint neural areas, but there is also significant difference in the representation of speech and music in the brain. Music and language are markedly different in their form, function and use of syntactic structures. Complex structure and functioning of the brain enable music to expand its impact on other areas of activity. Music and speech are defined by melody or intonation, stress, rhythm and dynamics. Speech and language rhythm is irregular, compared with rhythm in music, although they mutually influence each other. Sense of rhythm is not equally developed in each individual. Perception of rhythm requires specific time processing, perception of intensity and duration, good auditory and motor conceptualization. Language and musical abilities development proceeds through certain steps, and a child is drawn by different rhythms in each developmental period. A child's overall development can be enhanced by rhythmic games. In children with speech and language disorders deviations in gross and fine motor skills, deficits in perception despite intact senses, poor attention and concentration and memory problems can be observed, which in turn affect perception and implementation of rhythm.
In the empirical part of the paper, a link between rhythmical abilities and speech and language disorders was explored. 36 children were included in the study, 18 children with speech and language disorders and 18 children without speech and language disorders, who attended last year of kindergarten or the first year of primary school. Testing was conducted in May 2012 in the Centre for Hearing and Speech Maribor and in the primary school Bojan Ilich in Maribor. Five hypothesis were formed and statistically verified with use of the Mann-Whitney U-test. In conclusion, the results of the study and their interpretation are summed up and in discussion, the results are compared to findings of other authors. This research showed that children with speech and language disorders reproduce rhythmic patterns significantly less successfully than children without speech and language disorders at 5 % chance. However, there was no statistically significant difference between the groups in the ability to perceive rhythmic patterns. Furthermore, differences between subgroups of children that had received different number of rhythmic stimulation sessions were not statistically significant. At 5 % chance, no difference was found in rhythmic abilities between boys and girls. |