The impact of music and how it affects the brain has been a hot topic for parents and scientists for the last ten to fifteen years. More and more studies are showing that children exposed to music have higher IQs, auditory development, verbal development, and memory skills.
Music is an effective means of triggering and influencing moods, aids communication, transcends language barriers, and encourages interaction with others. The film, television, and marketing industries use music to trigger our emotional response or entice us to buy a product. When we lose someone we love, we listen to sad music; When we’re on a long road trip, we tend to listen to upbeat music to keep us alert or chase away the blues. To get into the Christmas spirit we listen to Christmas songs.
What recent studies have found
A Canadian study published in September 2006 in the daily science, produced evidence that children who studied music had better listening skills and general cognitive functioning related to memory and attention than children who did not study music. Other studies have found that “assignment to music training is associated with improvements in IQ in school-age children.” The 2006 Canadian study explored how musical training affects the way the brain develops. The result of the study showed that music is good for your child’s cognitive development and that “music should be part of the preschool and elementary school curriculum.”
Northwestern research has been directly investigating what happens after a child stops taking musical instrument lessons after only a few years. What they found is that adults with one to five years of music lessons had “enhanced brain responses to complex sounds, enabling them to recognize sounds in complex and noisy listening environments.” They had more fine-tuned auditory perception, decision-making function, and auditory communication skills than those without musical training. Those adults without musical training had less enhanced brain responses. Previous studies focused on the music student who continued their training into adulthood, devoting their entire lives to musical training. The new study published in Journal of Neuroscience it captures a much larger group, as most children exposed to musical training generally do not continue beyond middle or high school.
Exposing your newborn or infant to music and songs benefits them even before they can talk or walk. A McMaster University study found that one-year-olds who were exposed to interactive music courses smiled more, connected and communicated better, and showed more sophisticated brain responses to music and songs.
A new study published in the journal BioMed Central, behavioral and brain functionsfound that auditory working memory and musical aptitude are “intrinsically related to reading ability”, and found a biological basis for this link through common neural and cognitive mechanisms.
The bottom line
Many parents do not recognize how music affects, influences and benefits their children. It can help positively in their development and growth from the very beginning. There are many reasons to expose your child to music, even from the womb. Here are our top ten reasons:
- Helps in brain development, including cognitive, communication, memory and hearing functions.
- It facilitates the development of self-confidence, self-esteem, self-expression and self-control, all key ingredients for a successful life!
- Provides emotional well-being.
- Stimulates motor skills.
- Accelerates language development and improves vocabulary development in young children.
- Inspire creativity and improvisation.
- Motivate concentration.
- Encourage interaction with others.
- Strengthens the bond between parents and children.
- Music is a very powerful method of setting your child’s mood.
There are multiple ways for parents to connect with their little one and expose them to the great world of music. The wonderful thing about music is that everyone loves it, and it’s so easy to incorporate simple interactive action music games into the home or attend an interactive music class. Sing “peek-a-boo my baby girl(boy)” or “here are your little toes” while you play with baby feet to the tune of “London Bridge is falling down,” may sound silly, but the baby will not only find it fun but will also learn from it. The rhymes and actions in many silly songs can help your child learn numbers, letters, words, and concepts.
Music is a powerful catalyst for learning, creativity, and development. From lullabies to looney tunes, from Bach to Rock, the influence of music and song influences your child’s teaching. Participate in interactive music and movement classes, and play and share music with your child as often as possible! Benefits are a powerful tool to help your child grow through the positive power of music.