Why Music is Healthy for Your Child

  • The research is ever increasing - Music is an extremely healthy activity for your child and musicians have brains that develop differently than non-musicians. Please see this short video for more information. If you found this video interesting you may wish to read "This is Your Brain on Music" by Dr. Daniel Levitin (© 2006)

    Other research you might find interesting:
     
    Two decades of frenzied research has now found that music education grows, hones and permanently improves neural networks like no other activity. Children who undertake formal, ongoing musical education have significantly higher levels of cognitive capacity, specifically in their language acquisition and numerical problem-solving skills. They also continue in education for longer, reverse the cognitive issues related to disadvantage and earn and contribute more on average across their lifetime.
     
    Playing a musical instrument changes the anatomy and function of the brain. But do these changes persist after music training stops? We probed this question by measuring auditory brainstem responses in a cohort of healthy young human adults with varying amounts of past musical training. We show that adults who received formal music instruction as children have more robust brainstem responses to sound than peers who never participated in music lessons and that the magnitude of the response correlates with how recently training ceased. Our results suggest that neural changes accompanying musical training during childhood are retained in adulthood. These findings advance our understanding of long-term neuroplasticity and have general implications for the development of effective auditory training programs.
    Erika Skoe and Nina Kraus (2012): Journal of Neuroscience. For the full Article click here: http://www.msd.k12.ny.us/files/3161/brain%20function%20research%20with%20highlights.pdf

    "Students in high-quality school music programs score higher on standardized tests compared to students in schools with deficient music education programs, regardless of the socioeconomic level of the school or school district."  
    Johnson, C. M. & Memmott, J. E. (2007).

    Examination of relationships between participation in school music programs of differing quality and standardized test results.
    Journal of Research in Music Education, 54(4), 293-307

     

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