It is no secret that music plays an important role in the development of motor skills, creativity and enculturation amongst young children. But what you might not know is that research also points to music’s ability to influence language, academics and even social behavior. Here are three lesser known impacts which music can have on growing children.
1. Which Comes First, Language or Music?
Music is just another language. And because the child brain is oriented for language learning and vocabulary collecting, kids often pick up music faster and have the capacity to expand their minds in response.
“Speech and music have a number of shared processing systems,” writes Susan Hallam of the Institute of Education at the University of London. “Musical experiences which enhance processing can therefore impact on the perception of language which in turn impacts on learning to read.” So musical training can grow the language processing system of the brain to advance a child’s reading ability.
But while Language is perceived as a fundamental aspect of human intelligence. Music, on the other hand, does not receive this importance although it is still viewed as a universal human ability. But a study on music and early language acquisition, probes into a new question of which came first, the chicken or the egg? The findings imply that “musical hearing and ability is essential to language acquisition.”
2. Arts Involvement and Academic Success
Statistics and other evidence show that a correlation seems to exist between musical training and academic achievement. Americans for the Arts reported that children who participate in the arts on a regular basis are more likely to receive recognition for academic performance.
A Reuters, Ltd. poll from 2007 revealed that 88 percent of all post-graduate students as well as 83 percent of all people with an income of $150,000 or more had had extensive musical training. Of course, these statistics may result from some social factors like the fact that many post-graduates came from higher income families who would have been able to afford music lessons as well as college tuition. However, they are also a powerful testimony to the importance of music exposure within education.
3. Music May Improve Behavior
Music can even produce a profound impact on a child’s social behavior. A recent study of children who were asked to work together to problem solve as a group demonstrated that exposure to music just before the activity resulted in children being 30 times more likely to help one another than without the prior music making.
Researcher Rie Davies said that her “study provides support for prior research,” while highlighting “the need for schools and parents to understand the important role music making has in children’s lives in terms of “social bonding and helping behaviors.” Davies went on to add that “Music making in class, particularly singing, may encourage pupils with learning differences and emotional difficulties to feel less alienated in the school environment.”
A neuroscience educator, Dr. Dee Joy Coulter, writes that music can also be a training ground for socialization skills and character qualities. One such quality is resilience which she says, “is not something we are born with; it must be learned and sometimes that takes many years. There is no vehicle more joyful and playful for providing such training than early childhood music and movement.”
Image from www.psmag.com
About Jessica Socheski:
Jessica Socheski is a writer who enjoys researching how guitar lessons for kids, private piano instruction and other musical training can have an important impact on developing children. You can follow her on Twitter @JessicaSocheski.