Effects of Music on Writing of Students with Disabilities

The purpose of this research was to determine if playing background music during journaling time could increase the words students with learning disabilities write per minute. Specifically, the study looked at the difference between the mean words written per minute when background music was not played and the mean words written per minute when background music was played. The study was constructed around students’ five-minute journaling time at the beginning of their language arts class. Students were given a teacher-provided prompt and they had five minutes to respond in writing. The study utilized an A-B-A-B research design. The baseline conditions consisted of no background music being played and the intervention conditions consisted of background music being played. At the end of each week, the mean words per minute were calculated for each student. Comparison of baseline and intervention data concluded that each student’s academic performance in the area of written expression was affected differently by the playing of background music. Careful analysis of the study results indicates more research needs to be done to determine whether playing background music increases the words per minute that students with disabilities can write