Dr. Jay Giedd's Analysis

Thompson, Paul..”Startling Finds on Teenage Brains.” SpingBoard: English Language Arts Ed. Betty Barnett. Tampa: College Board, 2015. 89-90. Print.

And they took a group of 6 year olds and gave them weekly singing and piano lessons for 9 months. And in this study they took a baseline IQ score at the before the 1st grade and then taken again at the beginning of 2nd grade with the time in between provided for the experiment. And they found that on average the kids that received the lesson IQ was 3 points higher than it was 9 months earlier. This might be in part because when learning to play an instrument much like learning a new language you brain is required to build new connections and remap the network of the brain to work faster. Another study that was published from Christopher Johnson at the University of Kansas was out to prove if this raise in IQ also would affect the testing scores of children. And they found that in an elementary school with good education in the arts scored 20% higher in both English and Math standardized test, than an elementary school with little to no music education. Johnson sums it up by saying, “Schools that have rigorous programs and high-quality music education and arts teacher probably have high-quality teachers in other areas. If you have an environment where there are a lot of people doing creative, smart, great things, even people who aren’t doing that have a tendency to go up and do better.”

The infants benefit, since the music helps prepare the brain to think in a special way. According to Dr. Diane Bales, in his article called "Building Baby's Brain": The Role of Music ", this structure stimulates the same patterns in the brain that are responsible forrazonamient .the Music also plays a positive role in skills language. According to Ann Gadzikowski, coordinator of the Museum Child in Chicago, there is a strong connection between the development of language and musical skills. To develop both language and musical skills, we must learn to Audits identify

People can develop and enlarge the brain with training, the most part of musician that play a piano or violin, they are capable in increase the part of his brain that is responsible to the musician ability, with a long session of training.

The human brain consists of billions of neurons (nerve cells) and develops rapidly during early childhood. These nerve cells send electrochemical signals to each other to form the brains essential functions of language, communication, learning, memory, movement, thinking, and problem-solving. This essay will explore the changes in children’s behaviour from early childhood to adolescence as the brain develops.

The development of the cortex in late teens is closely related to a child 's cognitive stimulation at four years old. Other factors such as cognitive stimulation at eight year old and parental nurturing showed no effect on the brain scans. These results are proof of a sensitive period that determines the development of the cortex. It is extremely important to utilize the proper curriculum during this particular window of opportunity.

From intense body changes, such as a growing brain and body, to new and harder expectations at school, middle and late childhood is often a very difficult time for many individuals. In order to understand the effect of many developmental changes during late childhood, I interviewed twelve-year-old Riley. Riley is an up-coming seventh grader at a local middle school and is very active in sports, such as soccer, tennis, and golf. She has an Auditory Processing Disorder, which means that her brain is not fully developed and is not completely attached to her ear; due to this disorder, Riley cannot process information as quickly or as well as her peers. I met Riley through her older sister and a good friend of mine several years ago, and I conducted

The first article showed the correlation between third grader, with various degrees of musical experience, who were tested on a battery of auditory processing and reading related tasks. One-hundred eighty four third-grade children from three mainstream public schools were participants in the study. Many of these participants had no previous knowledge of hearing or neurological problems. Of the 184 third-grader 13 failed to complete portions of the testing protocol and 15 failed provide information about their musical history and therefore were excluded. Of the 156 remaining children, 108 took music lessons at time of the study and the other children never participated in any form of formal music lessons. Some children with musical experience had between 1-36 months of experience and were taking music lesson and playing a musical instrument at least once a week. (http://journals.plos.org)

Luckily, many studies have shown that skills may always be developed and is indeed a fact. Learning how to play an instrument or simply learning how to read sheet music can help the left side of the brain, in which primarily controls the logic and reasoning, as well as the right side of the brain, in which controls the creativity and imagination, develop differently compared to a child who does not have a knack for the arts. A study from Northwestern University showed a student must be engaged in

Overall, the article covers the correlation between brain disorders and musical processing. The authors, Camilla Clark and Laura Downey and Jason Warren, have a claim that recent findings in research allow us as a society to further understand the biological role of music. The evidence provided is quite useful for the authors and researchers themselves, as it assists in forming a more concrete answer as to what the role of music really is in our human society. Similar to the first article, there is a significant amount of data. But, in this article there is more data concerning the different responses that result from different types of music on different types of brain disorders. There are even full brain scans with highlighted parts that show which parts of the brain are responding to music. As for counterarguments, it would be quite difficult in this case to provide a counterargument because of how plausible the claim really is. Answers are forming from the extensive research, but the answer to what the true biological role of music hasn’t come up yet. As stated before, this article is almost entirely information and is certainly a scholarly form of text. There are no biases from what has been read so far. There isn’t much of a gap in the argument because the data that has been formed from the extensive research does show that we are learning more about the effects of

Dr. Eric Rasmussen said, “There’s some good neuroscience research that children involved in music have larger growth of neural activity than people not in music training. When you’re a musician and you’re playing an instrument, you have to be using more of your brain,” (Brown, n.d.). Children who learn an instrument at a young age not only learn how music works but also use more of their brain which can improve their phonological skills. Everyone has phonological skills but when people are involved in music, it expands their ability to exercise those phonological skills and they are more susceptible to learning new things faster. The brain learns how to work harder and exercises more parts of the brain, making it easier for children to understand other subjects such as math, science, english, etc. There was a study done by Ellen Winner, a professor of psychology, who looked at

In their “Music Matters” pamphlet, the Arts Education Association argues that arts education improves students’ abilities in Core tested areas and brain development. It is vital for every child to be able to better themselves in addition to their mind. A new study from the National Institutes of Health Magnetic Resonance (MRI) Study of Normal Brain Development says that training in music helps children be more mature emotionally and behaviorally, in addition to refined fine motor skills (Nutt). These are the developments that all children need in order to develop healthily. Mathematical skills are learned and reinforced in musical practice, which is why band kids perform better in math than their other nonmusical peers as they age in their educational careers (Arts Education Partnership). This is important because this development is dual-purposed for two subjects and relates them both to academic improvement. Leveling the playing field in the terms of students better understanding an essential subject will also aid in their development because they will be able to understand English more. Music students also have stronger determination, leadership skills, and observation and performance abilities that future universities and employers search for in successful students and employees (Arts Education Partnership). These benefits are multi-purposed and useful in numerous aspects of a person’s academic and employment future. Should these be made available for all students in order to give them equal opportunities to prepare them for the real world, then they will most likely have the opportunity to become

In addition, contrary to the link found between musical education and IQ, genetics also plays a “substantial role in the link between music training and IQ” (Schellenberg 296). Therefore, the children’s abilities to reading or perceive better may be something that they received from their parents at birth. Genetics is not a variable that can be controlled or altered with music or at the will of a parent. Prodigies are a product of nature. At the age of 10, Alma Deutscher, wrote an entire opera version of Cinderella on her own, a task that is quite challenging for even adults to accomplish. In a “60 Minute” feature, a now 12 year old Deutscher creates a song with 4 random notes the host picks out of a hat (“60 Minute”). Within less than a minute she is able to impromize a piece with the four notes and create a story that can be heard in the melodies of the song.

Although many, one positive way music education is beneficial to students is that it has a large impact on brain stem growth. With the incorporation of music in a student’s daily life, the brain stem’s responses become more robust (Brown). Therefore, the amount of brain stem growth correlates with recent musical training. As stated by Brown, an adjunct professor at the University of Baltimore, “student’s that are involved with a large amount of music will see more gains in brain stem growth”. Furthermore, the neural changes that occur in students as adolescents stay with them into adulthood (“Music Matters”). This allows students to be more prepared once they go into the workforce as adults. Along with the brain stem’s responses being more robust, it’s sensitivity to sound increases (“The Benefits” 1). This is abundantly evident from early on, as mother’s sing to their infants to facilitate brain stimulation and development. Enrichment through music, starting at a young age, seems to improve individuals speech sound development and use of more advanced vocabulary. Adolescents’ language also improves with the use of music in a student’s academics (Miller 46). Luehrisen

Music tends to have a positive effect on the transfer of learning. For example , learning to play an instrument enhances the ability to remember words through enlargement of the left cranial temporal regions of the brain. A study brought up by the Institute of Education at the University of London shows that musically trained participants remembered 17 percent more verbal information then those without musical training (Hallam 2012). Extensive active engagement with music induces cortical reorganization producing functional changes in how the brain handles information. When this is an occurrence in an early stage of development , usually in children and young adults, it may produce permanent changes in the way information is being processed into the brain. These changes display what exactly has been learned and how it has been learned. According to the article, "Transfer of cognitive learning from one domain to another depends on the similarities between the processes involved, transfer can be near and far and it is stronger and more likely to occur if its near"(Hallam 2012). To continue with this aim, Salamon