According to a new five-year study by University of Southern California neuroscientists, music instruction evidently accelerates young children’s brain development. This is particularly true in areas of the brain responsible for processing sound, language development, speech perception, and reading skills.
Mason’s Potomac Arts Academy is a member of the National Guild for Community Arts Education, and the Guild recently reported on this interesting study.
According to USC, “These initial study results, published recently in the journal Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, provide evidence of the benefits of music education at a time when many schools around the nation have either eliminated or reduced music and arts programs. The study shows music instruction speeds up the maturation of the auditory pathway in the brain and increases its efficiency.”
“We are broadly interested in the impact of music training on cognitive, socio-emotional and brain development of children,” said Assal Habibi, the study’s lead author and a senior research associate at the BCI in the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences. “These results reflect that children with music training, compared with the two other comparison groups, were more accurate in processing sound.”