The role of music in the development of children with Down syndrome: a systematic review

Music is commonly used in special education to achieve developmental and therapeutic aims, often in people with special needs. The present article conducts a systematic review of results from previous studies that explore the role of music in the development of children with Down syndrome (DS). It analyses a sample of 19 articles, in English and Spanish, from several databases (ERIC, Scopus, SciELO, Dialnet, Web of Science, CSIC and Pubmed). The results show that music has positive effects in the treatment and progress of the four main areas of development (social-emotional, motor, cognitive and communication) in children with DS. Nevertheless, the review reveals a lack of detail in the methodologies used and in the specific development areas, which call for further clarification in future research. These aspects are discussed in order to gain more conclusive results from future studies.