Rhythm Processing Across Development: Origins, Links to Language Processing, and Perspectives for Intervention

A wealth of research has investigated rhythm processing in music and speech, revealing shared cognitive and neural correlates and potential transfer effects, as evidenced by shared benefits and shared processing difficulties, as well as effects of stimulation and training programs. In this review article, we first discuss the empirical evidence of rhythm processing in adults and children and highlight the need to extend this investigation to early infancy. We next summarize new experimental evidence of rhythm processing in early infancy, with a focus on prematurely born infants who provide a model of early neurodevelopment. Finally, we present two longitudinal studies as concrete examples for investigating rhythm processing in healthy full-term infants for nonverbal and speech materials and its tracking over development (here up to 5 years). Altogether, this review aims to motivate new research investigating interindividual differences in rhythm processing in early infancy, along with implications for typical and atypical developmental contexts and potential diagnostic value. It provides evidence for the potential benefit of early rhythm-based training interventions, which may decrease the cascading effects of early atypical rhythm processing during development.