October 2010
Keeping in Touch is a newsletter service provided by the Learning
Connections Centre. We aim to provide current information on child
development issues to the community.
Contents
1. Applause for Clapping Your Hands
2. How Diet Can Affect Behaviour And Learning - An
Evening for Parents and Teachers
3. Training Dates and Places
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1. Applause for Clapping Your Hands
ever study of hand-clapping
hand clapping songs reveals a direct link
The first-ever
between those activities and the development of important skills in
children and young adults. Hand-clapping
clapping games lead to neater
handwriting and fewer spelling mistakes, according to Israel's Dr.
Idit Sulkin.
Would you take up an activity, or encourage your children to
engage in it, if you knew that it could reduce the risk of dyslexia
and dyscalculia,
dyscalculia, improve cognitive abilities, social integration,
handwriting and spelling and make you feel more focused and less
tense?
Apparently all of the above is as easy as clapping your hands.
A researcher at Israel's Ben-Gurion
Ben Gurion University of the Negev (BGU)
conducted
onducted the first study of hand-clapping
hand clapping songs, revealing a direct
link between those activities and the development of important
skills in children and young adults, including university students.
"We found that children in the first, second and third grades
gr
who
sing these songs demonstrate skills absent in children who don't
take part in similar activities," explains Dr. Idit Sulkin a member of
BGU's Music Science Lab in the department of the arts. "We also
found that children who spontaneously perform hand-clapping
h
songs in the yard during recess have neater handwriting, write better and make
fewer spelling errors."
Dr. Warren Brodsky, the music psychologist who supervised her doctoral
dissertation, says Sulkin's findings lead to the presumption that "children
"ch
who don't
participate in such games may be more at risk for developmental learning problems
like dyslexia and dyscalculia. There's no doubt such activities train the brain and
influence development in other areas. The children's teachers also believe
believ that
social integration is better for these children than those who don't take part in these
songs."
Hand clapping improves motor and cognitive training
As part of the study, Sulkin went to several elementary school classrooms and
engaged the children in either a music appreciation program sanctioned by the board
of education or hand-clapping songs training - each lasting a period of 10 weeks.
"Within a very short period of time, the children who until then hadn't taken part in
such activities caught up in their cognitive abilities to those who did," Sulkin says.
But this finding only surfaced for the group of children undergoing hand-clapping
songs training. The result led Sulkin to conclude that hand-clapping songs should be
made an integral part of education for children aged six to 10, for the purpose of
motor and cognitive training.
During the study, "Impact of Hand-Clapping Songs on Cognitive and Motor Tasks,"
Sulkin interviewed school and kindergarten teachers, visited their classrooms and
joined the children in singing. Her original goal, as part of her thesis, was to figure
out why children are fascinated by singing and clapping up until the end of third
grade, when these pastimes are abruptly abandoned and replaced with sports.
"This fact explains a developmental process the children are going through," Sulkin
observes. "The hand-clapping songs appear naturally in children's lives around the
age of seven, and disappear around the age of 10. In this narrow window, these
activities serve as a developmental platform to enhance children's needs emotional, sociological, physiological and cognitive. It's a transition stage that leads
them to the next phases of growing up."
Improving spatial task performance
Sulkin says that no in-depth, long-term study has been conducted on the effects that
hand-clapping songs have on children's motor and cognitive skills. However, the
relationship between music and intellectual development in children has been
studied extensively, prompting countless parents to obtain a Baby Mozart CD for
their toddlers.
Nevertheless, the BGU study demonstrates that listening to 10 minutes of Mozart
music (known as the 'Mozart Effect') does not improve spatial task performance
compared to 10 minutes of hand-clapping songs training or 10 minutes of exposure
to silence.
Sulkin also discovered that hand-clapping song activity has a positive effect on
adults as well. University students who filled out her questionnaires reported that
after taking up such games they became more focused and less tense. "These
techniques are associated with childhood, and many adults treat them as a joke,"
she says. "But once they start clapping, they report feeling more alert and in a better
mood."
Sulkin grew up in a musical home. Her father, Dr. Adi Sulkin, is a well-known music
educator who, in the 1970s and 1980s, recorded and published over 50 cassettes
and videos of Israeli children's play-songs, street-songs, holiday and seasonal
songs, and singing games targeting academic skills.
"So quite apart from the research experience, working on this was like a second
childhood," she concludes.
World of Dyslexia Newsletter Sept 2010
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2. How Diet Can Affect Behaviour And Learning - An Evening for Parents
and Teachers
Neuro Developmental Therapist – Maureen Hawke
Maureen will discuss options on how to help with learning once dietary and
biochemical issues are addressed. How neuro-developmental approaches and
sensory motor integration can support the student’s learning.
G.P. – Dr Gary Deed
Dr Deed will discuss new areas of research and medical and biochemical treatments
that have shown success over time, in relation to student’s learning abilities and
commonly diagnosed conditions.
Dietician – Jeanie Ryan
Jeanie is a practicing dietician on the north side of Brisbane. She will discuss dietary
issues and dietary options in behaviour management for our children to be the best
they can be.
DATE: Monday evening, 8th November, 2010
VENUE: St Joseph’s Catholic Primary School, Eldorado Street, Bracken Ridge
TIME: 7.00 pm – 9.30 pm
COST: $18 (Connect members) $25 (non Connect members)
PAYMENT: Connect Information & Training Solutions
BSB: 014 209 A/c No: 526986548
ENQUIRIES: Donna on 3261 6445 or email at [email protected]
Please phone or email to reserve tickets www.connectinfo.com.au
3. Training Dates and Places
Training in the Learning Connections School Program:
o
o
o
o
Warwick - 17th and 18th October 2010
Bowen – 12th and 13th November 2010
Brisbane – 17th and 18th January 2011
Brisbane -18th and 21st February 2011
Training in the Learning Connections Early Years Program:
o
o
Gympie – 25th and 26th October 2010
Brisbane – 17th and 19th January 2011
Special half day extension training!
o
Darling Downs – November 2010
We can come to your school as well!
Great discounts for teachers who would like a refresher!
Call Dianne for more information on 07 33691011.
Learning Connections
PO Box 11 Paddington Q 4064
Ph: (07) 3369 1011 Fax: (07) 3367 2242
Email [email protected]
Web www.learningconnections.com.au
ACN 010463760 ABN 13 010463760 Established 1976