Investigating the moderating role of socioeconomic status in the relationship between music education and auditory discrimination

Studies show that music training and socioeconomic status are related to children's learning of language. Learning a language has different parts. One of the essential parts of learning a language is auditory discrimination. Auditory discrimination plays a vital role in language acquisition and especially comprehension skills. In this study, we investigated the moderating role of socioeconomic status in the relationship between the duration of music training and auditory discrimination in children. Previous studies have shown that music training at an early age can improve language acquisition. Most studies on this subject have been conducted in Western countries, and not many studies have been done in other cultures. Eighty-six participants between 6 to 10 without or with 3 to 72 months of prior experience in music training were selected and examined by available sampling from music institutes and schools in Mashhad. Auditory discrimination was measured using the Wepman auditory discrimination test, and for estimating socioeconomic status, parents were asked to fill Ghodrat Nama socioeconomic questionnaire. We determined that socioeconomic status significantly modulates the relationship between the duration of music training and auditory discrimination. The present study shows the role of cultural differences and socioeconomic status in examining the relationship between the duration of music training on human language abilities.