Babies' brains benefit from music lessons, researchers find
May 10, 2012 After completing the first study of its kind, researchers at McMaster University have discovered that very early musical training benefits children even before they can walk or talk.
They found that one-year-old babies who participate in interactive music classes with their parents smile more, communicate better and show earlier and more sophisticated brain responses to music.
The findings were published recently in the scientific journals Developmental Science and Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences.
"Many past studies of musical training have focused on older children," says Laurel Trainor, director of the McMaster Institute for Music and the Mind. "Our results suggest that the infant brain might be particularly plastic with regard to musical exposure."
Trainor, together with David Gerry, a music educator and graduate student, received an award from the Grammy Foundation in 2008 to study the effects of musical training in infancy. In the recent study, groups of babies and their parents spent six months participating in one of two types of weekly music instruction.
Read More:
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-05/mu-bbb050912.php
