Music lessons boost brain function, learning ability in impoverished kids

By Megan Brooks

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Musical training can help disadvantaged children strengthen their reading and language skills, according to research presented August 8 at the American Psychological Association's 122nd Annual Convention in Washington, DC.

"Research has shown that there are differences in the brains of children raised in impoverished environments that affect their ability to learn," study presenter Dr. Nina Kraus, neurobiologist and principal investigator in the Auditory Neuroscience Lab at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, said in a conference statement.

"While more affluent students do better in school than children from lower income backgrounds, we are finding that musical training can alter the nervous system to create a better learner and help offset this academic gap," she noted.

In email to Reuters Health, Dr. Kraus noted that making music "engages a rich series of brain networks to direct attention to sounds, and to associate those sounds with meaning. These sound-meaning connections are made during a positive emotional experience, and we know that these are the conditions necessary to engender changes in brain function. Importantly, making music improves the automatic state of brain processing, such that even when a child isn't actively making music they are processing sound more efficiently."

Until now, research on the impact of musical training has largely involved middle- to upper-income music students participating in private music lessons.

The research conducted by the Northwestern research team involved extremely disadvantaged children participating in Harmony Project.

The Harmony Project provides instruments for the students, who participate five or more hours a week in musical instruction and ensemble rehearsals. The project is year-round and tuition-free based on income. Many of the programs build full-time bands in neighborhoods where the students live and the students agree to commit to the program from elementary school through high school.

In separate projects in Chicago (involving high school-age children) and Los Angeles (elementary-age children), Dr. Kraus and colleagues measured neural responses and language and cognitive ability prior to and after two years of group music instruction.

In the Los Angeles study, beginning when the children were in first and second grade, half participated in musical training and the other half were randomly selected from the Harmony Project's long waiting list and received no musical training during the first year of the study.

Over the study period, the wait-list children who had no musical training had lower reading scores, while Harmony Project participants' reading scores held steady or increased, Dr. Kraus reported.

In the Chicago study, the researchers tested auditory abilities in adolescents at three public high schools. Over two years, half of the students participated in either band or choir during each school day while the other half were enrolled in Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps (JROTC) classes, which teaches character education, achievement, wellness, leadership and diversity. All participants had comparable reading ability and IQs at the start of the study.

After two years, neural responses to sound in the music students were faster and more precise than in students in JROTC classes.

It's noteworthy, Dr. Kraus said, that the differences in the music students' brain waves in response to sounds were evident at two years, but not one year.

"It takes time to change the nervous system. It's only though persistent and repeated music making, in this case over two years, that we see these biological enhancements," she told Reuters Health. "Pragmatically, it's a testament to the fact that we can't think of music education as a quick fix, but that if it's an ongoing part of children's education it can have a major impact on their lives of listening and learning."

Dr. Margaret Martin, founder of the Harmony Project, told Reuters Health, "Teaching poor kids to play and perform music with one another in bands and orchestras, starting early in 1st or 2nd grade, may 'fix' the negative neurological impact of poverty. Sustained music training is now an evidence-based method for closing the achievement gap between poor kids and their more advantaged peers."

She added, "Biological and behavioral evidence suggests that music training may literally remodel poor kids' developing brains in ways that improve their capacity to listen, to focus, to read, and to learn. Prior research has shown that the positive cognitive impact of music training endures throughout the lifespan."

The Harmony Project has launched programs in other urban school districts, including Miami, New Orleans, Tulsa, Oklahoma, Kansas City, Missouri and Ventura, California.

"Harmony Project (www.harmony-project.org) actively supports the efforts of organizations and groups that are interested in replicating Harmony Project's award-winning model in their own communities," Dr. Martin said.

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