The Relationship among Speech, Movement and Sound of Expression Activity in the Children with Intellectual Disability : Through the Analysis of a Practice of Music-Making on a Picture Book

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to clarify the relationship of the developmental process through the activity of musical expression of speech, movement and sound in the elementary form. In order to investigate the above, a practice of making music on a picture book is planned in a class of children with light intellectual disability. One boy with unique musical expression was chosen and his lesson record was observed for 2 years. The analysis of his lesson record is as follows. 1. At the first stage, he creates fragmentary rhythm from the rhythm of onomatopoeia. 2. At the second stage, he connects these fragments of rhythm. And he makes music with dynamics and musical form from the expression of the series of onomatopoeia. 3. At the third stage, he creates fragmentary stories from the material he has now. Then he makes music in the playing style that is faithful to the stories. At the same time, he diversifies the music. 4. At the final stage, fragmentary images are combined in a complete story and played with the vivid expression given from the story. In the above process, speech (mostly the story making and onomatopoeia), and the sounds from instruments are closely related. Rhythm is created from the rhythm of onomatopoeia. The whole expression of onomatopoeia is transformed into the sound of musical expression of dynamics and musical form. In order to diversify and enrich the content of the music, his story making plays the most important role. Here I could observe a close relationship among his speech, movement and sound of expression activity by means of creating a piece of work with a plot. Therefore the music he creates is a perfect whole composed of speech, movement and sound in a natural form.