For many children, music has long been an indispensable part of life. In the upsurge of all-round quality education, various music tutoring classes, interest classes and early childhood education institutions have emerged.
Apart from the benefits of getting a music skill itself, from the perspective of children’s psychological development, does music also promote the development of children’s cognitive level?
[Mozart Effect], Does It Exist?
When it comes to the topic of music and children’s development, people first think of the once famous [Mozart Effect], that is, listening to Mozart’s music can promote children’s brain development and make children smarter. But is this really the case?
The Mozart effect was first discovered in a 1993 study by researchers such as Laucher and Shaw, College students who listened to Mozart’s sonatas for 10 minutes scored significantly higher on spatial reasoning tests than those who listened to relaxed instrumental music for 10 minutes or sat quietly for 10 minutes. From this, the researchers concluded that Mozart’s music caused changes in the brain, preheated nerve connections, and thus promoted the development of thinking.
However, this research result cannot be directly inferred from college students to children. Subsequent studies on children have found contradictory results. Some studies have found that Mozart’s music and Bach’s music can improve children’s spatial reasoning ability, but others have found that Mozart’s music has no effect on children.
Piercini et al. Summarized and analyzed most of the researches on [Mozart Effect] since 1993 in 2010, and found that although listening to Mozart’s music is more conducive to the achievement of spatial reasoning tasks than not listening to music, the effect of listening to Mozart’s music is not significantly different from that of listening to other types of music, indicating that Mozart’s music is not special.
Some scholars believe that Mozart’s music did not actually lead to real changes in ability. It just improved people’s mood or awakening state, enabling people to focus more on tests.
Therefore, there is not sufficient evidence to prove the existence of [Mozart effect]. We cannot expect listening to music for more than ten minutes to make children smarter. Therefore, parents and friends should be alert to preschool education CDs or courses on the market, such as “Let Mozart tune your brain”, “Short-term and efficient music learning method” and “Newborns Listen to Mozart-Brilliant Beginning”. Generally, materials with such titles are mostly tricked under the name of “Mozart Effect”.
Can Music Promote Children’s Cognitive Development?
Although this quick effect does not exist, it does not mean that there is no relationship between music and children’s ability development.
A large number of psychological studies have shown that, Music plays an important role in promoting children’s cognitive development (such as perception, language and memory). The study found that Listening to music can activate children’s emotions in a short period of time, thus improving children’s information processing speed and creativity. However, attention should be paid to choosing music that is cheerful and suitable for children’s age, and allowing children to enjoy it.
For example, some researchers asked several groups of 5-year-old children to listen to Mozart, Albinoni or their familiar children’s songs before drawing. The results showed that children who listened to children’s songs drew longer and more creatively.
Therefore, parents can play some cheerful and relaxed music when playing with the baby to assist the development of the baby’s cognitive ability. However, if you don’t play with the baby because you want to be lazy, just play music to the baby, then listening to music may not be so useful to the development of the baby.
Want to use music to improve children’s cognitive ability? Let the children stick to music training,
Although listening to music can improve children’s cognitive ability, this effect cannot last long, up to about one day. If parents want their children to achieve long-term improvement effect, we should consider systematic music training. For example, let children learn a musical instrument from an early age or learn music theory knowledge.
1. Music Training and Brain Development
Will the brains of children trained in music become different? A psychologist did an experiment. In the experiment, Two groups of children aged 2-7 participated in different levels of music training. Among them, 15 received private keyboard lessons for 15 months. As the experimental group, the children in the control group took part in a 40-minute group music class once a week (including learning to sing, play drums and bells, but excluding instrumental music learning guidance). Finally, it was found that the children in the experimental group showed great improvement in finger flexibility, auditory sensitivity and rhythm discrimination skills.
In addition, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) results show that structural changes in the brain’s motor and auditory regions (regions that are crucial to learning instrumental music) are significantly related to behavioral improvements (motor and musical auditory tests). Psychologists believe that it is music training and practice that cause the development of specific regions of the brain. Because before training, MRI scans of the brains of the two groups of children found no structural differences.
In other words, without professional training, most children are on the same starting line-everyone has the same [sense of music].
Therefore, parents need not give up training their children in music because they are worried about their lack of [talent].
2. Music Training and Language Development
Can Music Training Promote the Development of Children’s Language Ability? The answer is yes.
The influence mainly exists in three aspects: reading ability, vocabulary and fluency of speech.
Perception of music and reading ability share the same physiological system, so music skills are related to speech organization ability and reading ability in childhood. As children grow older, their vocabulary will expand. They will actively explore the world around them and hope to make contact with the people around them. At this time, music training will add auditory discrimination ability, vocabulary and reasoning ability of non-verbal clues (such as interpretation of gestures, postures, eyes, etc. of others); In addition, the longer children receive music training, the better their performance will be, and their dialogue with others will be smoother, which is very helpful for formal study after entering school.
However, please remember that only continuous practice will affect the brain’s language organization ability. Therefore, in order to obtain better training results, parents should urge their children to stick to learning.
3. Music Training and Memory
Many studies have proved that, Musicians have better verbal performance, working memory capacity and long-term verbal memory than those without music training. This may be because musicians have more developed speech retelling mechanisms. For example, One experiment recruited 60 college students. Thirty of them studied musical instrument performance before the age of 12. And had at least six years of training, while the other 30 had no music training. Researchers presented the same phrase orally to two groups of students three times and asked them to repeat it as much as possible. As a result, those who had music training could obviously remember more phrases.
A few years later, the researchers tested those who continued to receive music training, and their verbal memory ability improved significantly. Those who stopped training did not change their memory ability. The results of the experiment support that music training can affect the memory process. Researchers believe that music can be used as a medium to integrate visual and listening input and motor output. This hypothesis can explain why music can help children remember.
How old is it to start music training?
Since music training has so many benefits, how old is it best to start training?
A large number of studies by psychologists have proved that starting music training before the age of seven may be a better choice.
Watanabe and others asked two groups of musicians who started music training around the age of 7 to complete a strange time-limited action task. It turned out that musicians who started training before the age of 7 performed better. This advantage is mainly reflected in the synchronization of movements, It indicates that early music training may affect the brain regions responsible for sensory-motor integration and timing, This effect has long-term effects. Steele et al. Found that early music training (before the age of 7) can increase the volume of corpus callosum (nerve fiber bundles connecting the left and right cerebral hemispheres), and may improve the coordination ability of the left and right hands and the brain’s sensory-motor integration ability, thus facilitating future music training.
What is suitable for children is the best choice.
Listening to music can improve children’s creativity and reaction ability in a short period of time. But the choice of music should not blindly pursue [elegance], What is suitable is the best. If you want to get long-term results from music training, you’d better start learning before the age of 7 and stick to it. However, each child’s development track is different and the speed of development is different. Therefore, even after the age of 7, you can still get many benefits from music training.
As a saying goes, [the best time to plant a lesson tree was ten years ago, followed by now]. In addition, despite the above-mentioned [utilitarian], if children can simply get happiness from music and have a happy childhood, this may be the greatest harvest of music learning.