Testing child for perfect pitch and will it be lost as child get older?

[lowhm]

Hi,

I know that many of the threads here believe that Perfect Pitch is a developed skill.

But I clearly remember I read somewhere in some magazine article that it says that all kids are actually borned with perfect pitch.
The reason that many of us do not seem to have perfect pitch is as we grow older and didn't use it, the ability is lost in the process.
Here is an online link to another link to something similar
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/all-babies-born-with-perfect-pitch-692723.html

I would like to know how do you know if a child has perfect pitch?

And if you know that the child has perfect pitch, do you do anything exercise or stuff to "maintain" the ability?

Eager to know ....   

Thanks.


lowhm

[scottmcc]

supposedly people who can speak a "tonal" language, such as Mandarin or Vietnamese, are much more likely to have perfect pitch, as they depend on tone to understand the meaning of words.  trained musicians are more likely to have perfect pitch than non musicians as well, for obvious reasons.

the theory you mention about everyone having perfect pitch is not universally supported, and there is some evidence of there being a hereditary basis for perfect pitch as well.  aside from the internet snake oil salesmen, you will not find a reliable method for gaining or maintaining perfect pitch (often called absolute pitch).

great lay level discussions of perfect pitch can be found in "Musicophilia" by Oliver Sacks, and "This is Your Brain on Music" by Daniel Levitin.

if you're more science-y, you could always search pubmed...there's some fun articles on there, most of which offering conflicting conclusions about the nature of perfect pitch:  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez (search term "absolute pitch," 300 results)

I noticed this one: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18396925?ordinalpos=12&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_DefaultReportPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum

[lowhm]

i understand your position and i'm somewhere between the two ends, or should i say i agree with both argument.
sounds contradicting i know ....  but that's my view for now.   

i saw a documentary by national geographic channel on human brain which feature a boy with perfect pitch
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1955232874558919934

it does mentioned that the human brain goes through 2 stages of cutting off connections that wasn't used (first few years of birth and at adolescence)
thus, it may does suggest that if you do not use your perfect pitch if you have it, you might lose it.

the reason i'm asking is i'm suspecting one of my kid is having perfect pitch but couldn't really confirm it.
and if he does really have perfect pitch, i would like to know what i can do to help him to keep it.

looking forward to any advice.