Considerable research has shown effects of stimulative and sedative music on human behavior. In this study, recorded sedative music was played while preschool children were resting, and periods of silence served as control. Preschool teachers monitored restime by caressing individual children to facilitate their sleeping. Observations by two trained observers recorded restless behavior of small groups (M = 7.4). Boys and girls were 3-5 years old and attending a university campus child-care center. Nearly 20% of subjects had some disability.

Observers recorded group behavior ([a] percent of off-task behavior and [b] number of minutes until sleep) as well as individual behavior ([c] body positions while resting and [d] degree of activity before sleep). Thirteen observations of approximately 60 minutes each were made.

Music consisted of four CD recordings of lullabyes that were made with the intention of relaxing listeners. During treatment conditions, playback volume was monitored by a decibel meter. Mean volume for all music was 61 dBs with a range of 58-65 dBs. The silent or nonmusic conditions had environmental sounds within the same 58-65 dB range. Only one intrusive sound of a telephone reached a disturbing level of 75dBs during both conditions. Other parameters of the recorded music included meter and tempo. Over 2/3 of the recordings used duple meter and the remainder used triple meter. In triple meter, there were q = 115 beats per minute (bpm). and in duple meter, q = 88 (bpm). Each recorded selection lasted about 2.5 minutes. Male and female soloists sang with guitar, piano or synthesized accompaniment.

Observations by two trained observers maintained 83% agreement on 20% of the cases. Percent of agreement was obtained by dividing the number of agreements by the number of disagreements plus agreements.

Observational data showed that off-task or restless behavior significantly differed between music and silent conditions during the first 20 minutes of restime. Mean off-task of preschoolers during silent or control conditions was 63% while during music conditions off-task was only 50%. Results of t-test comparison showed t = 3.2, df = 9, p = .01. Figure 1 (shown below) illustrates the decrease in off-task behavior across time for both silent and music conditions, and Spearman Rank Correlation was r = - .62 across the 20 minute comparison. No significant differences were noted in the amount of time needed to go to sleep between girls (M = 30.6 minutes) and boys (M = 25.7 minutes) across both conditions.

Results also indicated significantly more minutes were needed to fall to sleep during silence (M = 34) than music (M = 22) when comparing five control and randomly selected music conditions (Wilcoxon Z = 2.02, p = .04). Data on body position of resting children demonstrated that, regardless of gender, 62% of the time children slept of their sides and 19% on either their backs or stomachs. Data on number of restless behaviors before sleep showed that girls shifted body positions 10.6 times and boys 9.3 times.

In conclusion, evidence from this study clearly suggests that recorded music is beneficial to preschooler's resting. Therapists are encouraged to play selected recordings for efficient use of relaxation time for children and investigate effectiveness of sedative music on older clients' rest time.

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