Effects of Drumming Lessons on Brain and Behavior in Children with Down Syndrome

Down syndrome (DS) is the most common chromosomal cause of cognitive disability, and it affects approximately 1 in 700 live births. Although the genetic etiology of DS (a complete or partial third 21st chromosome) has been known for over 50 years, many fundamental questions about how to support high quality of life for individuals with DS remain unanswered. One area of relative weakness in DS is Inhibitory Control (IC). This skill is important for daily tasks such as following directions, making decisions, and managing money among other tasks. Existing research demonstrates a clear link between playing the drums and IC. In the proposed research, we will conduct an experiment in which 7- to 12-year-old children are randomly assigned to the Experimental (EXP) and Wait List Control (WLC) conditions. In the EXP condition, children will receive drumming lessons between Visit 1 and Visit 2, and in the Wait List Control group, children will receive drumming lessons after Visit 2. In this way, all children will receive drumming lessons, but only the EXP group will show effects of the drumming lessons in Visit 2. Testing conducted during Visits 1 and 2 will include behavioral and neural measures of inhibitory control and drumming, neural measures of beat perception, and parent report of social behavior (via Standardized questionnaire). Our predictions are that children in the EXP condition will show improvements in both measures of IC and increases in precision in the beat perception and drumming tasks. We also expect that parent report of children’s behavior on the social skills questionnaire will show improvement. Across the EXP and WLC conditions, we expect no differences at Visit 1 but significant differences between conditions at Visit 2. If we obtain these predicted results, we will conclude that drumming lessons can improve the inhibitory control skills of children with DS. Building on this work, there are two main directions we would like to take this research in the future. In one, we will explore whether learning more complex rhythmic drumming patterns would show a greater impact on 7- to 12-year-old children’s inhibitory control skills. In the other, we will test younger children with DS: those in the 3- to 4- year-old age range. Beginning drumming lessons that early in life, when brain plasticity is greater than it is later in childhood, might show even more of a positive impact for the children’s daily skills that are affected by IC. Taken together, this whole project promises to have a substantial impact on our understanding of how perceptual-motor activities during childhood can improve IC skills for children with DS. Project Number: 1R21HD116079-01A1 | Fiscal Year: 2025 | NIH Institute/Center: Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) | Principal Investigator: AMY NEEDHAM | Institution: VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY, Nashville, TN | Award Amount: $463,645 | Activity Code: R21 | Study Section: Motor Function, Speech and Rehabilitation Study Section[MFSR] View on NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/1R21HD11607901A1