“Music is great, music is fantastic, music is social —
let them enjoy it for what it really is.” said Ms. Parbery-Clark, a doctoral candidate in the Auditory Neuroscience Lab at Northwestern University. Even the NYTimes is giving attention to the benefits of music for kids in their recent post; Early Music Lessons Have Longtime Benefits.
Photo Credit: NYTimes | Joyce Hesselberth
As mentioned in this NYTimes post…research studies continue to show the correlation between musical training in childhood and strengthened auditory skills and language-based learning.
Researchers at Northwestern University recorded the auditory brainstem responses of college students — that is to say, their electrical brain waves — in response to complex sounds.
The group of students who reported musical training in childhood had more robust responses — their brains were better able to pick out essential elements, like pitch, in the complex sounds when they were tested.
And this was true even if the lessons had ended years ago.
At Kindermusik, we know it’s important to incorporate music into children’s lives for many reasons, including early childhood development. We see developmental milestones happen every day with so many children. As new research and studies are conducted, we continue to learn the importance and understand the lifelong effects and benefits of music – and look forward to incorporating this into our curriculum and share this knowledge with our Kindermusik students, families, and educators around the world.