Rhythmic Responses of Negro and White Children Two to Six With Special Focus on Regulated and Free Rhythm Situations.

This article focuses on the monograph "Rhythmic Responses of Negro and White Children Two to Six With Special Focus on Regulated and Free Rhythm Situations," by , Dorothy Van Alstyne and Emily Osborne. his monograph presents the results of a most interesting and important piece of research. The authors tested 483 children, half Negro and half whit; between 2 1/2 and 61/2 years of age. Recording the results of the tests in such a manner as to make exact scoring possible, the authors scored these children on several variations of two basic tests. One test consisted of the child's beating of blocks in time with a mechanically produced pattern. This was called regulated rhythm. The other, the child's ability to reproduce that pattern after he had heard it. This was called free rhythm. By the test in regulated rhythm, the authors were able to demonstrate the superiority of the Negro children tested over the white children by about 50 percent, with the greater difference occurring in the younger age groups. By the test in free rhythm, they demonstrated that the Negro children were superior in the simpler patterns, but were about equal in the more complicated ones.