Social Emotional Development and Temperament among Preschoolers

This cohort observational study was inspired by the current awareness of children’s mental health and development. This study attempted to observe the level of social emotional development (SED) of preschoolers aged five and six years old. It examined the differences in social emotional development by preschoolers’ temperament, gender and musical programs. Thirty-nine preschoolers who enrolled in two music schools in Petaling Jaya and Kajang were recruited through convenient sampling as respondents in the study. The Carey Temperament Scale by Mcdevitt and Carey (1995), filled by the parents at the beginning of the study, were used to assess the children’s different temperaments in 9 dimensions of 3 temperament types (easy, slow-to-warm up and difficult). Children’s Social Emotional Developmental Checklist was used after one month of observation in a natural music classroom setting to assess the preschoolers’ SED. The result of this study showed all respondents had a relatively higher SED score. However, an analysis of variance test found that there is no significant difference among the respondents’ SED scores by temperament types (easy, slow-to-warm up and difficult). An Independent-samples t-test analysis revealed that there was no significant difference in the respondents’ SED scores by gender and music program. This might be due to the sample size in the study is being small and uneven. The non significant findings suggested a bigger sample size in the future study and perhaps a longitudinal experimental study to better examine the influence of music on children’s SED. The findings of this study implied that the children with different temperament types may have achieved similar level of social emotional development if their temperament styles were recognized, accepted and accommodated appropriately, according to each child’s individual temperament.

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