Posted on 09/20/2006 5:48:57 PM PDT by blam
How music lessons hold the key to brainier children
By Roger Highfield, Science Editor
(Filed: 20/09/2006)
Young children who take music lessons show more advanced brain development and improved memory than those who do not, according to a study published today.
Suzuki pupils in concert: research shows evidence of early musical learning being linked to advanced brain development
Researchers claim to have found the first evidence of musical training being linked to greater attention skills.
After a year, musically trained children performed better in a memory test that is correlated with general intelligence skills such as literacy, verbal memory, mathematics and IQ, reports a Canadian team.
The researchers add that their results will be welcomed by teachers and parents who feel that music should be part of the pre-school and primary school curriculum.
The findings, which are backed by brain scans, are published today in the journal Brain by McMaster University's Institute for Music and the Mind in Hamilton, Ontario, and the Rotman Research Institute of the University of Toronto.
"While the greater improvement that we found in musical tasks is not surprising after one year of music lessons, greater improvement on a non-musical memory task in children taking music lessons is very interesting," said Prof Laurel Trainor, of the McMaster Institute "Furthermore, our research shows that this occurs in children as young as four years of age."
Prof Trainor, who led the study with Takako Fujioka, compared 12 children aged four to six years over the course of a year: six of the children (five boys, one girl) had just started a Suzuki music school; the other six (four boys, two girls) had no music lessons outside school.
The researchers chose the Suzuki method to ensure the children were all trained in the same way, were not selected according to their initial musical talent, and had similar family support.
Brain activity was studied with magnetoencephalography – which measures magnetic fields in the brain – while the children listened to two types of sounds: a violin tone and a white noise burst.
Analysis showed that across all children, larger responses were seen to violin tones than to the white noise, indicating that more brain resources were put to processing meaningful sounds.
In addition, the time that it took for the brain to respond to the sounds decreased over the year. This means that as children matured, the electrical conduction between neurons in their brains worked faster.
Of most interest, the Suzuki children showed a greater change over the year in response to violin tones in a component of the brain scan related to attention and sound discrimination than did the children not taking music lessons. General memory capacity also improved more in the children studying music.
Prof Trainor said the brain scan finding fits with the large improvement seen in their memory test, which was also statistically significant.
"It suggests that musical training is having an effect on how the brain gets wired for general cognitive functioning related to memory and attention." Dr Fujioka added: "It is clear that music is good for children's cognitive development and that music should be part of the pre-school and primary school curriculum."
An earlier study at the University of Toronto, led by Dr Glenn Schellenberg, examined the effect of extra-curricular activities on the intellectual and social development of 144 six-year-old children and also concluded that music improves intellect.
While such previous studies have shown that school-aged children given music lessons show greater improvement in IQ scores than those given drama lessons, Prof Trainor's study is the first to identify such effects in the brain.
Interesing, study. I, think, that, I, agree, with, it.
Why do you use how and hold for keywords?
Waldo, your pianissimo needs a little more staccato.
But I just wanna play football!
We shouldn't? I thought it was desireable to use all 'title words'.
LOL, last time I looked I had posted over 7,400 articles and all have been done this way.
You've posted a total of 7,456 threads and 47,873 replies.
ROFL. Very good.
The keywords are used to identify a topic you can search for later. Using insignificant words doesn't really accomplish anything. Just my 2¢
Correlation is not causation.
So that's why I'm so brilliant.
Bank it! All of the students in our high school ensemble were in AP Advanced Placement tracking.
Okay. I'll work on it, thanks.
That is indeed why you are so brilliant : )
Probably any demanding intellectual activity would do equally well.
You could have your kids learn Latin grammar, or memorize Shakespeare, or do long division in their heads, and it would be pretty much the same thing.
ping
Actually, it's probably time that we run a refresher course on what the keyword function is and how it should be used. We've had a lot of new posters sign up since the last Admin Lecture.
We're back in the Admin University polishing up the final draft of the speech. Stay tuned. Can't say it will be as interesting as Hugo Chavez's speech today, but at least it will be based in reality.
Maybe.
My guess is that is things that combine 'left brain' and 'right brain' pathway utilization that build lots of neural pathways that help in many other fields.
You better run and hide...the mods are on to you:-)
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