Isn't it funny how as we cut more, and more, funding for arts education in our American school systems more, and more, research is showing something that most parents and teachers have known for a very long time music helps kids to learn. Music therapy is helpful for autistic kids. They have a hard time interacting with other kids and teachers. They can become agitated in noisy places. Autistic kids respond well to music therapy, which can be used to help them remain calm under stress and enable them to socialize more effectively. My self being the parent of autistic sons discovered that they learned and retained information better if I delivered it through music. For educational purposes I like to let them learn the songs from America Rocks videos and various websites that instruct science and math through music.

According to the Assoc. for Psychological Science, IQ scores were higher in children who took lessons in keyboarding or singing. In another study, young boys between the ages of six and fifteen who took music lessons scored higher on tests of verbal memory than students without musical training.

A study written up in the journal 'Nature' showed that when groups of first graders were given musical instruction that emphasized sequential skill development and musical games involving rhythmn and pitch, for six months, these children scored significantly better in math than children in groups that received traditional music instruction

The Director of the Institute for Music & the Mind at McMaster University in Ontario Laurel Trainor, and colleagues, compared preschool kids who’d taken music lessons with kids that didn’t. Those with some training showed larger brain responses on sound recognition tests. The research showed that musical training modifies the brain's auditory cortex. Even just one or two years of music training leads to enhanced levels of memory and attention. Ms. Trainer said, “We therefore hypothesize that musical training (but not necessarily passive listening to music) affects attention and memory, which provides a mechanism whereby musical training might lead to better learning across a number of domains," She also suggested that the reason for this is that the motor and listening skills needed to play an instrument in concert with other people appears to heavily involve attention, memory and the ability to inhibit actions. Musicians process music in the left hemisphere of thier brains while non musicians process music in the right hemisphere of thier brains according to one German study. Mozart's music and baroque music, with 60 beats per minute, seem to activate the left and right brain. The simultaneous action maximizes learning and retention of information. The information thats being studied activates the left brain and the music being listened to activates the right brain. Activities that engage both sides of the brain at the same time, such as playing an instrument and/or singing, train the brain to be more capable of processing information.

Since Baroque music also ellicits a sense of joie de vive I would think that schools would benefit from piping it through thier intercom systems for that reason alone. I wonder how well kids who had it piped through thier schools would do on the national school exams? Wouldn't it be an easy and fantastic way to raise test scores for all of our schools across the country?

A researcher from Harvard named Gottfried Schlaug also studied the cognitive effects of music/musical training. Schlaug and his colleagues found a correlation between early childhood training in music and enhanced motor, auditory skills and improvements in verbal ability and nonverbal reasoning. That would probably have helped my sons with thier physical therapy.

Scientists also discovered that different types of instruments appear to cause different modifications in the brain. Changes in the brains of singers occur in slightly different locations than those for keyboard (piano and organ) or string players (violin, viola, cello, harp, guitar, etc.). The correlation between music training and language development is even more amazing in dyslexic children. "[The findings] suggest that a music intervention that strengthens the basic auditory music perception skills of children with dyslexia may also remediate some of their language deficits." Schlaug said.

Dr Gottfried Schlaug reported that tone deaf people often have a reduced or absent arcuate fasciculus (a fiber tract connecting the frontal and temporal lobes in the brain). Reduced, or damaged, arcuate fasciculus have been associated with various language problems such as aphasia, and dyslexia. This also proves that dyslexia is a physically caused problem. Dr. Schlaug, found that some regions of the brain i.e. the corpus callosum and the right motor cortex, were larger in musicians who started their musical training before the age of seven.

A study performed by Antoine Shahin showed that there was even more evidence that formal music training strengthens auditory cortex responses. He believes that musical training gives a child the acoustic responsiveness of a one who is two to three years older. Shahin said that when someone listens to sounds repeatedly, especially listening to/for harmonic or meaningful such as music and speech, the appropriate neurons get reinforced in responding preferentially to those sounds compared to other sounds. Shahin's findings are that the changes triggered by listening to musical sounds increases with age and the greatest increase occurring during the tween years, between the ages of 10 and 13. This seems to indicate this age as being a sensitive period for music and speech acquisition.

University of Toronto's Glenn Schellenberg found that just listening to music seems to help a person perform certain cognitive tests, in the short run but actual music lessons for children leads to a longer lasting cognitive success.

So what Kind of music should our kids be studying? A student named David Merrill conducted an experiment to discover how music would affect the ability of mice to learn new things. Merrill had a group of mice listen to classical music and another to heavy metal music for twenty four hours a day. Then he timed the mice as they ran through mazes to see if the music affected their speed of learning. He had to cut the first experiment short because the mice who listened to heavy metal all killed each other. In a second experiment, mice that listened to Mozart for ten hours a day dramatically improved their maze solving capabilities, while the heavy metal mice actually became worse at solving them than they’d been at the beginning of the experiment.

So,not only do different types of music help in education, but different instruments as well, as music appreciation. I would assume a type of "cross training" in music would be more helpful in the training of young minds. I wonder if they've done a study on this idea.

Right now I'm reading alot of advertising for binaural beat frequencies, but I haven't read anything about how they work on the mind/brain yet.