Promoting Inhibitory Control in Preschool Children Through Music-Movement Activities in the Classroom

Executive function (EF) is an early cognitive skill that rapidly develops during the preschool years. One of the common EF issues in young children is inhibitory control. This study investigates the impact of music-movement activities on children’s inhibitory control. We designed the music-movement training (MMT) program for preschoolers to practice monitoring and controlling their actions. A quasi-experimental, pretest-posttest design was used to investigate the effectiveness of the MMT program on children’s EF. Preschoolers age 4–5 years old were assigned to receive the 45-minute MMT, three times/week, for eight weeks (n = 39; 21 boys, mean age 4.36 ± 0.42 years), or regular classroom activities (n = 40; 17 boys, mean age 4.49 ± 0.29 years). After training, the MMT group showed greater improvement in the performance of inhibitory control tasks as compared to the control group, but showed no significant change in working memory and cognitive flexibility. In conclusion, music-movement activities may be helpful for teachers to enhance inhibitory control in preschool children. We suggest that the preschool curriculum should emphasize more music-movement activities by integrating them into everyday learning activities.