‘Cane Talks: The Music Mothers Make – The Importance of Singing to Infants

The Music Mothers Make: The Importance of Singing to Infants

Shannon K. de l’Etoile
Associate Dean of Graduate Studies
Professor, Music Therapy
Frost School of Music

Throughout history and across cultures, mothers have sung to their infants, suggesting that this music has an essential purpose. What are the important characteristics of mothers’ singing? How do babies respond to and benefit from this musical interaction? Music therapy professor Shannon de l’Etoile’s research examines the important role of singing in our earliest days. 

Dr. Shannon de l’Etoile is Associate Dean of Graduate Studies, and Professor of Music Therapy at the University of Miami Frost School of Music. Dean de l’Etoile is a board-certified music therapist and has taught music therapy at the University of Iowa and at Colorado State University. She was previously a research associate at the Center for Biomedical Research in Music in Colorado. As a clinician Dean de l’Etoile has worked with adults with mental illness, children and adolescents with emotional and behavioral disorders, adults and children with developmental disabilities, and adults and children with neurologic disorders. Her current research focuses on infant response to music and its developmental implications. Dean de l’Etoile has published widely on music therapy and currently serves on the editorial review board for the Journal of Music Therapy.

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