This study is to find out the effects of singing through Body Expression Activities(BEA) on mentally
retarded children's acquisition of both receptive and expressive vocabulary. The subjects were 14 mentally
retarded children, who were divided equally into an experimental group and a comparative group. A
singing program along with BEA was applied to the experimental group, while the comparative group
dealt with just a singing program. The results are as follows:
BEA had a positive effect in improving mentally retarded children's receptive and expressive vocabulary,
but statistically it didn't show any significant difference between the two groups.
This indicates that BEA(an independent factor) is not a decisive factor in the improvement of mentally
retarded children's receptive and expressive vocabulary (a subjective factor).
Even though they took different programs, both groups showed a significant improvement in receptive
and expressive vocabulary.
It implies the singing program applied to both groups was effective to mentally retarded children in
acquiring vocabulary.
These results showed there were not ‘statistically’ any meaningful difference between the effects of the
two programs on mentally retarded children's acquisition of vocabulary. In other words, BEA had a
positive effect on the acquisition of vocabulary but didn't act as an influential factor.
Consequently the basic level of BEA used in this thesis seems to work as a factor to boost children's
interest and participation, irrespective of the acquisition of vocabulary.