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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Psychol.
Sec. Developmental Psychology
Volume 15 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1443080
This article is part of the Research Topic Medical Neurohumanities: Sharing Insights from Medicine, Neuroscience and Music in Pediatric Care View all 7 articles

Effect of an early music intervention on emotional and neurodevelopmental outcomes of preterm infants at 12 and 24 months

Provisionally accepted
Manuela Filippa Manuela Filippa 1*Lara Lordier Lara Lordier 2Fleur Lejeune Fleur Lejeune 1Joana S. De Almeida Joana S. De Almeida 2Petra S. Hüppi Petra S. Hüppi 2Francisca Barcos-Munoz Francisca Barcos-Munoz 2Maria G. Monaci Maria G. Monaci 3Cristina Borradori-Tolsa Cristina Borradori-Tolsa 2
  • 1 University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland
  • 2 Division of Development and Growth, Department of Pediatrics, Obstetrics and Gynaecology, University of Geneva, Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland
  • 3 Università della Valle d'Aosta, Aosta, Aosta Valley, Italy

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Background. Few studies have found long-term effects of early musical environmental enrichment in the NICU on preterm infant's development. This study examines how early music enrichment affects emotional development and effortful control abilities in 12-and 24month-old very preterm (VPT) infants. Methods. 119 newborns were recruited, including 83 VPTs and 36 full-term (FT) infants. The VPT infants were randomly assigned to the music intervention (44 VPT-Music) or control (39 VPT-control) groups. VPT-Music infants listened specifically designed music intervention from the 33rd week of gestation until hospital discharge. At 12 and 24 months, children were clinically evaluated using the Bayley-III Scales of Infant and Toddler Development and the Laboratory Temperament Assessment Battery, and at 24 months, with 3 additional episodes of the Effortful Control Battery.Results and discussion. Our analysis showed that during a fear eliciting task, the VPT-Music group expressed lower level of fear reactivity and higher positive motor actions than VPTcontrols and FT infants. At 24 months, the VPT-music group had lower scores for negative motor actions in the joy task, compared to both VPT-control and FT groups. In addition, both FT and VPT-music had higher scores of sustained attention compared to VPT-controls, but the contrasts were not significant. No significant effects on mental, language and motor outcomes were identified and for all three dimensions of the ECBQ.Conclusions. The present study suggests that an early music intervention in the NICU might influence preterm children's emotional processing at 12 and 24 months. Limitations and suggestions for future research are highlighted.

    Keywords: preterm infants, Music intervention, emotion, Attention, effortful control Normal, Justifié, Espace Avant : 6 pt, Après : 12 pt

    Received: 04 Jun 2024; Accepted: 01 Oct 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Filippa, Lordier, Lejeune, De Almeida, Hüppi, Barcos-Munoz, Monaci and Borradori-Tolsa. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Manuela Filippa, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland

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