Interesting Facts on the Benefits of Children Learning a Musical Instrument What hard evidence do I really have to demonstrate that music is as good for my child as music teachers say it is? New research in neurobiology reveals that young children who were given weekly music lessons and daily group singing lessons dramatically improved the type of intelligence needed for higher level math and science. In a study titled "Music and Spatial Task Performance: A Causal Relationship", a 46% boost in spatial reasoning IQ scores resulted from just eight months of traditional music lessons. Researchers say this reveals "a very powerful tool for the enhancement of children's intellectual development." The study shows that "musical activities help systematize the neural firing patterns of the brain's cortex so they can be maintained for other pattern development duties [of the brain], in particular, the right hemisphere function of spatial task performance." (Rauscher, Shaw, Levine and Ky, 1994.) Another interesting and recent study of a group of socially disadvantaged second grade students...in Greenwood, Mississippi demonstrated that after two semesters of keyboard instruction, the children in the study displayed an average increase of seven percent on their achievement test scores, compared to no increase in the control group of students who received no music instruction. The study indicated that learning music aided students in many areas, especially in the prereading skills of listening, concentration, pattern recognition and sequence cognition. (Electronic Musician Magazine, April, 1992, "Midi Enters the Classroom" by Edward Tywoniak) Back Home