Young children who learn to play an instrument or sing can boost reading and language skills, especially when it's a child dealing with academic disadvantage, according to new research presented at the 122nd annual convention of the American Psychological Association.
A study conducted of students involved in musical training in public schools in Los Angeles and Chicago reveals learning music can have an impact on the brain.
"Research has shown that there are differences in the brains of children raised in impoverished environments that affect their ability to learn," states Nina Kraus, PhD, a neurobiologist at Northwestern University.
"While more affluent students do better in school than children from lower income backgrounds, we are finding that musical training can alter the nervous system to create a better learner and help offset this academic gap."
The study, say researchers, is the first to focus on young students as most research on the impact of musical training has been primarily conducted on middle- to upper-income music students.
The study results indicate musical training improves a child's nervous system process in a busy environment, such as an active classroom or playground environment. This improvement then leads to better memory and longer attention spans. That then results in better classroom focus and communication skills, claim the researchers.
The study involved assessing children in first and second grade, with half involved in musical training and the other half getting no musical training in the first half of the study.
After two years of evaluation the research teams discovered that neural responses to sound in music students were faster and more precise than those children not involved in music training.
Kraus said the study is the strongest evidence yet that public school music education in lower-income students can lead to better sound processing in the brain.
And the benefits don't stop once a child's musical training stops as the same level of results are found when college students are involved in musical training, researchers noted.
"We're spending millions of dollars on drugs to help kids focus and here we have a non-pharmacologic intervention that thousands of disadvantaged kids devote themselves to in their non-school hours - that works," said Dr. Margaret Martin,PH, who founded the Harmony Project in Los Angeles.
"Learning to make music appears to remodel our kids' brains in ways that facilitates and improves their ability to learn."
