|
|
Home |
Music Lessons May Open the Mind to Math and Science Source: Unknown Parents take heart.
If weekly music lessons show no sign of turning your kid into a
young Leonard Bernstein, they could be stoking the talents of a future
Marie Curie or Galileo. Just 15 minutes a week of private keyboard
instruction, along with group singing at preschool, dramatically
improved a kind of intelligence needed for high-level math and science,
suggests a new study. Music lessons appear to strengthen the links
between brain neurons and build new spatial reasoning, says psychologist
Frances Rauscher of University of California-Irvine. “Music instruction can improve a child’s spatial
intelligence for long periods of time – perhaps permanently,”
Rauscher told the American Psychological Association meeting
here. Her study compared 19 pre-schoolers who took the
lessons and 14 classmates enrolled in no special music programs.
After eight months, she found: - A 46% boost in spatial IQ’s for the young musicians
- 6% improvement for
children not taught music. “If parents can’t afford lessons, they should at
least buy a musical keyboard….or sing regularly with their kids and
involve them in musical activities,”
Rauscher says. She’s next going to test grade-schoolers. “If we can show it enhances spatial IQ in primary kids, this is a very powerful method to assure that every child reaches his or her potential in math and science,” Rauscher says. |
"Let us come before Him with thanksgiving and extol Him with music and song." Psalms 95:2 "Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth, burst into jubilant song with music." Psalms 98:4 |