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Down syndrome affects to 34,100 people in Spain, of whom 58.4% between the ages of 6 and 15 preschools attend regular classes, obtaining in most cases a primary and secondary education, with 2.4% even reaching higher education. Gradually these statistics will be more positive due to the fact that early attention, motor skills and personal achievements are opening roads which so far have not been open to this group; for example, a university level education, musical training and job placement.
For children generally affected with Down syndrome, the training activities for achieving better integration into mainstream education are: early intervention, speech therapy, psychomotor training... these activities improve cognitive ability, mobility and children's language skills. Sports and recreational activities are generally focused at improving coordination, socialisation and enjoyment of children. The most frequent activities are sports, such as swimming, football, horse riding, ballet, aerobics, dancing ... There are other fun activities where children learn to live with others, to understand and respect others in camps, excursions and cultural visits.
It can be seen that in general the activities are focused on cognitive development and enjoyment of the child, but do not help to train for the future. Some projects that have been launched in recent years introduce art and painting, where kids perform, display and sell their paintings, thereby gaining an economic and personal gratification. In contrast to art, these children have not been able to demonstrate the potential that can be achieved in the area of music, because such readily accessible projects have not been created.
The work was developed during a 2 years period with a small sample of children belonging to the Association Down Las Palmas. The children's ages ranged from 6 to 11 years. In addition another centre which is part of this research is at the Conservatory of Music in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, which gave us a room for the implementation of the project.
The main research goal at the beginning was introduce Down syndrome children to play piano through specific methods. However later we could see how the rhythm, notes name and values helped them to improve their concentration in some subjects at school. Thus we focused in both ways (playing piano and improving musical language knowledge).
We made an assessment of the assimilation of musical and pianistic skills during the course of the investigation through a video recording of all the sessions and with a final concert. The research has provided data on the evolution of learning, the assimilation of concepts and cognitive and behavioral development of students at home and at school.Through this investigation we wanted to show how music could help Down syndrome people to be integrated. In Spain the Music Education was an area where disabled people cannot study at Music School until we made this work. Nowadays this group can study music if they want to do it, but at the moment only in the Canary Islands.
