Music Improves Children’s Learning Ability
Music lessons in childhood are likely to improve one’s brain function at the age of an adult. This is the conclusion drawn by the researchers from Northwestern University in Illinois.
In recent decades, the theme of the influence of music on brain development has been discussed widely. However, only now the scientists have investigated for the first time what happens to the children a few years after they “break up” with a musical instrument. The people, who had dedicated themselves to music from one year to five years, demonstrated a detailed brain response to more complex sounds if compared with those who had never had the appropriate training at an early age. In short, their hearing was much better, and they could “get the fundamental frequency” – the lowest rate in the sound, which is decisive for music.
Nina Kraus, Professor of Neurobiology and Physiology at the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, Northwestern University, comments that music helps educate children as good listeners in the future. Judging from the known fact that music contributes to the process of brain formation, we can conclude that even short-term studies in childhood can increase the rates of human hearing and improve one’s learning abilities.
The professionals involved 45 adults in the experiment with different musical data and measured their hearing. The participants of the experiment were divided into three groups: the first one had no musical training, the period of learning music in the second group ranged from one to five years, and the participants from the third group had from six to eleven years of music practice. It was known that the volunteers from the second and the third groups began their musical studies at the age of 9. As expected, the neurons of the musicians maintained an incredibly lively reaction, they reacted to the sounds accurately and quickly. The musicians easily discerned the key elements from the overall noise, they could talk and hear the interlocutor.
Earlier Nina Kraus stated that when a musician was playing an instrument, the activity of the motor cortex, the cerebellum and other brain structures involved in the planning and implementation of specific and finely tuned over time movements increased. According to the researcher, musical instruments develop a sense of rhythm and tempo and have a beneficial effect on the nervous system. Musical experience helps overcome communication problems at an elderly age.
The results of the scientists’ research was published in the Neuroscience journal.
