Child Music Development

The first article explains how music plays a big role in social, physical, thinking and language development. Music quite often provides opportunities to practice patterns, math concepts and thinking

Hicks, George. "How Playing Music Affects The Developing Brain. CommonHealth RSS. CommonHealth, 17 July 2014. Web. 04 Mar. 2016.

The search of information of this study yield the correlation between music education, musical training, and musical experience of children and the ability that music have on the enhancement of children learning ability in the areas of auditory perception, reading related skills, verbal and nonverbal reasoning. The participants in this research are children between the ages of 3 to 10 year old and are all elementary school aged children.

Music -- whether it be musical instruction or simply listening to music -- has been shown to improve cognitive abilities. Making music is a complex process that requires the tuning of fine motor skills, which

The definitions of musicality and its expression fit on a wide spectrum. By using longitudinal studies, researchers are able to identify how and why musicality develops over a period of time using the same subject. The study of 48 candidate examples of longitudinal studies and 27 reports broken into four subareas (music; language and music; educational concerns; family, culture, and context) finds that developmental trends related to musicality are not necessarily linked to specific age ranges. What has been discovered is that the first three years of a person’s development are critical for enhanced musicality. The opportunity for play experiences and exposure to participation in musical activities, both formal and informal, are essential

Recent studies have shown that a fully matured brain is capable of changing by learning simple music techniques. This process is identified as Music Plasticity, Plasticity is permanently shaping structural brain development.(jneurosci) Changes occur because of the profound emotions that music is able to break through. Each song written holds heavy expression within it, the associations that musicians make with these expressions is particularly…. Playing an instrument is an intense, personal movement in which long periods of practice time is a must. It requires hours upon hours of repetitive movements, memorizing long phrases, and different forms of time presion levels, being so, this develops strong organizational skills within the brain,

Today, I am convinced that musical talent is a God given seed within every newly born child. However, for it to blossom, it must be nurtured daily from a very early age on. Therefore, the child should be constantly exposed to a wide variety of music. Amazingly enough, the subconscious mind will register these new sounds and rhythms. A few years down the road, when the child begins music lessons, he will have a storehouse of natural resources which will help him develop the necessary skills with much more ease.

This development on the brain is called brain plasticity, which is defined as “the capacity of the brain to change, remain flexible, and continue to learn throughout one's life” (Collins, 2014). The practice of music education, allows musicians to enhance the brain’s pathways, making the brain work twice as hard, than a person who is a non-musician. Musicians have been found to attain higher levels of skills than non-musicians (Collins, 2014). The problem with this, is whether music education does have an impact to the brain of musicians. Parents should take music education into consideration. This will help their children to perform better in school, therefore getting good grades will be something easy for them. Many people question whether music education really helps or not, neuroscientists are studying this, to find if music education does help a person develop several areas of the

Many people love music for a number of reasons, but what most people do not realize is that music helps to develop the brain. Studies on the correlation between music and the human brain have been conducted by neuroscientists at Harvard, Stanford, and the University of Oregon (Cole). Some studies show how a musician’s brain functions differently compared with a non-musicians with a sequential typing task (Tucker, Nguyen, and Stickgold), while others focus on how the brain physically grows and what areas grow more drastically (Kanako, Eiji, and Shoji). The mind of a musician contains stronger connections between regions, more processing power, and more grey matter than non-musicians. The grey matter allows musicians to process more information

There have been many theories that believe that when you are a child listening to classical music or playing an instrument makes you more intelligent. However there have not been studies to proof this hypothesis. According to the film, there has not been a study done that says listening to Mozart a baby or in utero makes you any smarter, which many people believe is true. Moreover, there was a study discussed in the film Music of the Brain that investigates the correlation between playing a musical instrument and a child’s IQ. The studied tested 144 students IQ in grade one, and split them into four conditions, three of which are musically art based and the fourth not receiving any musical training. At the end of the year they retested the students IQ proving that the students who did get the musical training achieved greater IQ scores, then the students who didn’t (by three IQ points). This study leads to a greater question of the importance of music being in the educational system.

Based off of a pbs article “research indicates the brain of a musician, even a young one, works differently than that of a non-musician”. This indicates that our learning growth of an average school student is slightly more advanced.

First, music has extensive impacts on the brains of babies. Specifically, music impacts the brain development of infants and toddlers. A child’s brain grows substantially until age three by building pathways between cells called synapses. Notably, the specific synapses needed to listen to classical music are extremely similar to those used for spatial awareness. On the other hand, music improves the cognitive abilities of babies’ brains. Studies by Dr. Frances Ravscher and Gordon Shaw solidify this idea (Batema, 2012, para. 2-5). Due to its more complex harmony, instrumentation and structure, classical music prepares pathways in the brain needs for various cognitive tasks. Consequently, better pathways make for more efficient cognitive processes. Likewise, music speeds up the learning abilities in babies. Extensive studies by McMaster University (2012) discovered that one-year-old babies have better communication skills and show earlier brain responses when exposed to “interactive music classes with their parents” (Science Daily, para. 1). Similarly, research by various professionals has proven the connection between music and more effective brain processes for children under three years old.

(Giovagnoli, Raglio, 2011) and the other younger subjects (9-12) with a minimal 2 years musical training, (Schellenberg, 2011) both concluded no significant relationship between intelligence and subjects with musical training. It

children between the ages of four and six participated. The participants were randomly assigned to one of three groups; thirty-two (eighteen females and fourteen males) received visual-art education, thirty-two (twenty females and twelve males) received music education, and thirty-two were assigned to the control group. Musical curriculum was defined as training in rhythm, pitch, melody, voice, and basic musical concepts, while visual art curriculum was defined as development in visuospatial skills, such as shape, line, color, and perspective. Participants were asked to complete several tasks related to verbal intelligence and executive function, while listening to musical stimuli. The verbal intelligence and executive function tasks were tested with musical stimuli, as well as without any musical stimuli or other distractions or stimuli, which may have impeded one’s performance (citation).

The first argument I will be using is that every new born child has the exact same level of talent, and skills are thus developed completely after birth. Supporting this argument are the findings of Sloboda et al. (1996), who studied the difference in ease of learning between successful young musicians and other children by comparing the amount of practice time and the progress towards successive grades. They found no significant evidence that supported the presence of inborn talent since the only difference in progress could have been declared by the difference in amount of time practicing. Furthermore research has shown that “untalented”, regular adults can achieve exceptionally high levels of performance in certain skills that exceeded all researchers’ expectations. Bennett (1983) researched the memory capacity of a waitress and compared this to a control group made of university students. The waitress’ memory was considerably better compared to the control group so Bennet (1983), and Ericsson & Polson (1988)