The Effect of Teaching Music on Active Memory of Educable Mentally-Retarded Children

Abstract

The present study was conducted with the purpose of considering the effectiveness of teaching music on active memory of educable mentally retarded children. For this purpose, a group of 20 mentally retarded students were randomly selected and then the subjects were randomly divided into one experimental group and one control group. Pretest was conducted on both groups and then the test group was taught music for 18 sessions, 60 minutes each (3 sessions a week). The tools used in this study include three subscales of Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC-IV), which measure working memory and include letter-number sequencing, digit span and arithmetic. To test the hypotheses, first, descriptive statistics indicators related to pretest and posttest scores were used in data description section, and then, using ANCOVA and proper statistical calculations with SPSS software package, data were analyzed. Results showed that teaching music led to an  improvement in working memory performance in working memory subscales, with the most effect being on letter-sequencing and the least effect on digit span subscale (P<0.01). Therefore, that the results indicated that teaching music led to improved working memory performance in educable mentally retarded children.