TitleThe Effects Of Prenatal Exposure To Music — страница 2

children were observed continuously until they reached the age of six. Purpose The purpose of my experiment would be to apply Dr. Logan’s pre-learning theory to infants at the 16th week of gestation as well as the 27th week of gestation. Most research on prenatal infant stimulation has been conducted at the 27th week of gestation. (Logan 1995) This is the period when Dr. Manrique conducted her experiment as well. Since fetuses begin to develop the sense of hearing around the 16th week of gestation, it would be interesting to see if the fetal brain cell death could be stopped earlier, therefore further increasing intelligence in children, relative to the children who were exposed to audio stimulation at the 27th week of gestation. By beginning with fetuses as young as 16 weeks,

the pre learning theory may be revised to include fetuses as young as 16 or 17 weeks. The hypothesis that I intend to test is that pre natal infants at the 17th week of gestation exposed to audio stimulation in the form of classical music will have better cognitive ability than those fetuses exposed toward the end of gestation. I also hypothesize that those children prenatally stimulated will have better cognitive skills when compared to children that have not been stimulated. Experimental Design, Measurement of variables For the experiment, I need 80 women to participate in the study. These women will be divided into a control group and experimental group. The groups will then be subdivided again to create two experimental groups and two control groups. There will be twenty

women per group. Both experimental groups will have their fetuses exposed to audio stimulation, in the form of classical music for 40 minutes a day. The women in experimental group A will begin stimulation at the 17th week of gestation, and the women in experimental group B will begin their fetal stimulation at the 27th week of gestation. The women will record their daily stimulation and fetal activity in a journal. The women in the control group will be asked to keep a journal as well. On a bi weekly basis, the women in all groups will visit the research center to give their journals to the lab staff. The staff will perform an ultra sound to observe the fetuses of all groups to observe the movements of the fetuses.Measurement of intelligence will consist of three sets of test

given every six months until the children reach the age of six. Each sets of test will correspond to the appropriate age. There will be tests for the neonatal period, the infant period, and the toddler period and the early childhood period. Over the testing period the researcher will need to use both quantitative and qualitative methods of analysis to determine the effects, and if possible, to what degree does classical music stimulation have an effect on the overall intelligence of children participating in the experiment from ages 0 to 6 years old.The women who participate in this experiment must be U.S. citizens as well as be married. They must be pregnant with their first child. The women should also be between the ages of 23 and 30. The participants must have their pregnancy

certified as healthy by their own doctor, as well as doctors participating in this particular experiment. All families participating in this experiment should be in the middle-income range, as determined by the Internal Revenue Service scale of income ranking.This is a between groups experiment. The independent variable is the prenatal gestation period at the 17th and 27th weeks of gestation. The second independent variable is whether the fetus receives audio stimulation. The dependent variable is the level of intelligence, measured through tests. Some variables that may affect the outcome of the experiment are maternal stress. Pregnancies can be aggravated by stress caused by a high stress job or other personal problems such as stressful personal relationships. Another

confounding variable is that some fetuses may have genetic or intellectual defects that may not be detectable until after birth. The control variables are the participants because they all meet the same criteria. There is also the same number of participants in the control groups and the experimental groups. ReferencesCary,P.( 1987). Music as a Prenatal and Early Impetus to Enhancing Cognitive Skills. Roeger Review, 9, 155-158Logan, Brent(1995) Fetal Sonic Stimulation, Royal College of General Practitioners, Office Reference Book, LondonManrique, Beatriz Proyecto Familia, Summary and Translation http://www.2bparent.com/research.html.