Research facts related to Early Childhood Music Classes

BENEFIT OF INTERACTIVE MUSIC CLASSES ON INFANTS:

Researchers at McMaster University in Canada found that infants who participated in parent/child interactive music classes had a better understanding of music and improved social development compared to infants who listened to background music only.

In the first study of its kind, researchers assigned 6-month old babies to one of two types of musical experiences. In one group the babies participated in a parent/child interactive music class involving singing, movement, instrument play and a take home CD. (Sound familiar?) In the other group the children listened to music from Baby Einstein CDs in the background while involved in art and play activities, and received the same CDs to take home and listen to. At 12 months, the babies who participated in the interactive music class showed a greater understanding of tonal pitch structure and an enhanced response to music than the babies who listened to background music. In addition, they showed less distress in unusual situations, communicated better and smiled more! Trainor et al. 2012. Becoming musically enculturated: effects of music classes for infants on brain and behavior. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 1252:129-138

INFANTS DETECT THE BEAT IN MUSIC: A 2009 study showed that newborns can process music even if they don't show an outward response. Researchers played consistent percussive rhythm patterns and then occasionally changed the pattern for newborns who were sleeping. The newborns were able to detect the change! How do we know? Tiny sensors on the surface of their heads were able to detect a change in their brain waves. Winkler, I., G. Haden, O. Ladinig, et al. Newborn; infants detect the beat in music. Proc. Natl. Acad.Sci. 2009; 106: 2468-2471.

MOVEMENT INFLUENCES INFANT RHYTHM PERCEPTION: In this study, seven month-old Infants were bounced to a specific beat (either in duple or triple meter). Afterward they paid attention longer to music with the same beat they were bounced to. Infants that listened to the same music but weren't bounced did not show a preference for either type of beat. This demonstrates that infants of this age can perceive the beat more readily if bounced to it.

Phillips-Silver J, Trainor LJ. Feeling the beat: Movement influences infant rhythm perception. Science 2005;308:1430.

NEURAL DEVELOPMENT: A study of children 5-7 demonstrates that musical training results in more connections (neurons) forming between the right-brain and the left-brain. Researchers looked at images of the brains of the children before assigning them to one of three groups: high-practicing, low-practicing, and no music instruction. There were no differences in left-brain, right-brain connections prior to the musical instruction. However, after two years of musical instruction and practice, these children had more connections than children not given musical instruction. The children assigned to the high practicing group had the most number of connections. Schlaug G, Forgeard M, Zhu L, Norton A, Norton A, Winner E. Training-induced neuroplasticity in young children. The Neurosciences and Music III: Disorders and Plasticity. Ann NY Acad Sci. 2009;1169:205-8.

ENVIRONMENT EFFECTS BRAIN DEVELOPMENT: Nobel prize winning research by doctors David Hubel and Tortsen Wiesel of the Harvard Medical School found that if a healthy kitten or monkey was raised with one eyelid sutured closed during the first few months of its life, the animal would be permanently blinded in that eye. This research from the 1960's documented the fact that the brain is not fully developed at birth. Instead brain development continues during the first years of life and the environment directly effects that development.

Kandel E, Schwartz J, and Jessel M. Principles of Neural Science. Appleton & Lange 1992

USE IT OR LOOSE IT CONCEPT: Researchers at the University of Washington in Seattle compared language perception between Japanese and American infants. They investigated the ability of these infants to distinguish between the sounds of R and L. (R and L are both used in English, but there is no L sound in the Japanese language, only R.) They found that at six months of age English and Japanese infants could equally distinguish between R and L sounds. By 12 months, the Japanese children had lost the ability to distinguish the difference between R and L sounds. Meanwhile, at 12 months, the American children had become better at hearing the difference between the two sounds.

How does this relate to music? This study exemplifies how quickly and dramatically the human brain is developing during the first year of life. During the first six months the brain is receptive to all sounds. By the second six months the brain is already prioritizing: discarding the ability to distinguish sounds that are not part of its environment, and reinforcing the ability to distinguish sounds that it hears regularly.

Since music and language are both sound based, one could hypothesize that a similar process occurs with music. Exposure to a wide variety of musical sounds and adequate repetition of those sounds between the ages of six and twelve months may have a lasting impact on the brain’s ability to perceive those sounds. Lack of musical stimulation during this sensitive time may make it more challenging for the brain to understand musical sounds in the future.

The Secret Life of The Brain. Richard Restak, M.D. The Dana Press and Joseph Henry Press, 2001