Singing is a great vehicle for communal activity, but it has disappeared as a part of adulthood in many communities. Children still sing in kindergarten, but when do we as adults sing together? Singing has a wide range of personal benefits besides learning about music and how to create it. Developing and improving healthy singing techniques has been shown to have multiple physiological and social benefits for the participants, while also being a thoroughly enjoyable experience. Working with the voice has many physical benefits, such as improved posture and respiratory strength, increased energy levels and also stimulation for the mind. There are also many social and personal benefits, such as boosted self-esteem and confidence, improved communication and listening skills, raised self-awareness and awareness of others and developed team working skills. One area of communal activity that has received increasing attention is participative community singing, because it entails aerobic exercise, social interaction and promotion of a sense of connectedness. We believe it may be a good avenue to increase sense of connectedness and to promote participation in exercise activities. In this book we provide persuasive evidence from research to demonstrate the power of community singing in promoting social and emotional wellbeing, preventing depression, promoting healthy behaviours and promoting access to health services in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in Australia. In addition, the health effects of Tai Chi as another form of the arts is also explored. Academics have collaborated with practitioners to produce the study results, all of which are quantitative and report on the effects of community singing practices for a marginalised population in Australia.

This book examines working memory in pre-term and full-term infants at eight months after the expected date of delivery. Although numerous studies have reported that the overall development of pre-term infants is comparable to that of full-term infants at the same corrected age, it is unclear to what extent the development of specific cognitive abilities is affected by pre-maturity and/or other factors such as medical complications. As pre-term infants have a high rate of learning difficulties, it is possible that factors associated with pre-maturity specifically affect the development of some regions of the brain associated with working memory.

The World Health Organization defines health promotion "as the process of enabling people to increase control over and to improve, their health". It moves beyond a focus on individual behaviour towards a wide range of social and environmental interventions. Discussions on how to define health promotion already emerged in the 1970s from the Lalonde report in Canada, which contained a health promotion strategy "aimed at informing, influencing and assisting both individuals and organisations so that they will accept more responsibility and be more active in matters affecting mental and physical health". Health promotion and health service, using a socio-ecological approach, has been effective to promote mental and physical health, and improve social functioning and social support in a range of population groups. A socio-ecological approach addresses the importance of the interaction between individual level characteristics, families, institutions, and community support to promote health to an optimal level. There is increasing evidence to indicate promoting resilience at both the individual and organisation levels is important to help individuals cope with daily stress challenges, and buffer the adverse effects of distress, abuse and neglect, psychological traumatic events, and disease. The key concepts of resilience promotion is structured around self-esteem, self-efficacy, optimism, goal orientation, autonomy, and the ability to seek social and environmental support. These concepts play an important role in improving quality of life, chronic disease conditions, increasing exercise levels, and reduction of risk health behaviours.