Although most children seem to love music, our understanding of the role it plays in
facilitating speech and language learning is limited, as is research validating its
efficacy in the clinical setting. The purpose of this study was to examine how
singing affects children’s quick incidental learning (QUIL) of novel
vocabulary terms. Sixteen children with language delay and mild developmental delays
were presented with spoken and sung story scripts containing eight novel words over
two experimental sessions. Lexical probes indicated that children’s naming
and comprehension of target lexical items did not significantly differ as a result
of hearing sung versus spoken scripts versions. A significant increase was noted in
the number of children’s unsolicited target word productions from Session
1 to Session 2 in the Sung Condition, indicating that sung input may enhance only
particular aspects of quick incidental word learning.
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