The purpose of this study was to find out the improvement of physical expression ability of young children with mental retardation (CMR) through the experiential music appreciation, which has not been investigated in the special education special rese...
The purpose of this study was to find out the improvement of physical expression ability of young children with mental retardation (CMR) through the experiential music appreciation, which has not been investigated in the special education special research field yet.
The study supposed the following hypotheses.
First, the experiential music appreciation would improve body cognition ability of CMR.
Second, the experiential music appreciation would improve the physical coordination ability of CMR.
Third, the experiential music appreciation would improve the body expression ability of CMR.
To verity the hypotheses, the experiential music appreciation has been applied to three CMR, who attended a special school in M city. Then, the body cognition ability, the physical coordination ability and the body expression ability were measured, if there were improvement than before.
The results are following.
First, the experiential music appreciation had an effect on the development of the body cognition ability of CMR. It improved the ability to recognize the names of parts of body, to point parts of their face and body as directed and to name parts of their body.
Second, the experiential music appreciation had an effect on the improvement of the physical coordination ability of CMR. It fostered to throw balls into a basket, to throw and receive balls in the sky above 2 meters, to exchange balls with their partner, to crashing cymbals and to walk along straight and zigzag lines.
Third, the experiential music appreciation had an effect on the improvement of the body expression ability of CMR. It fostered the expressions with body after listening sounds, which exist in the normal living fields, to imitate sounds of vehicles and animals with body, to respond appropriately as the rhythm and feeling of music, and to express it with instruments or the body.
This study proved that the children could enjoy themselves expressing novel and various expression beyond expectation, if we get chances to use various instruments unrestrictedly. In the following studies, it is necessary to observe subjects and apply the treatment continually, to improve the program and to invest in education activities continually. In this study, there were only three male children as participants. It is necessary to apply the program to more various subjects.
There should be more following studies, which develop more various music program. The music program in this study was applied intensively in a short period. So, it is possible that there are difficulties to generalize in and prove the significance of the results. Therefore it is necessary that the application of the music program and observation should be conducted continually.