Did your parents play music for you before you were born or when you we a little infant? Did they encourage you to play a musical instrument?
It has been believed for some time that there is a connection between music and intellectual development. For generations, parents have encouraged their children to take music lessons. While some hope to find a budding Mozart, others just to make their child's education more well-rounded. Starting in the late 1970s, early exposure to music took another turn, when some parents seeking to give their offspring an intelligence edge played music to their babies, even before they were born. But not just any music - specifically classical music. There were studies looking at correlations between music and mathematical ability. Early exposure to music, while the brain is still developing, was thought to be key but no one had devised a way to measure this.
Now there is a new study that looks at the link between intelligence and the study of music, Parents who encouraged their children to take up an instrument may have been on the right track all along. However, this is the first study to provide clear, measurable proof of the intellectual advantage of studying music.
Music teachers everywhere have to be smiling at this news.
A study done at the University of Toronto looked at the effects of music lessons on IQ for six year old children. Dr. E. Glenn Schellenberg and his colleagues recruited 144 six year olds for the study and assigned them to one of four groups randomly. The kids either got singing lessons, keyboard lessons, drama lessons or were assigned to a group that did not receive after school lessons. The researchers wanted to see whether studying an instrument or voice lessons were different or if studying another performance art, like drama, had a similar effect. Two kinds of music were used to see if the effect would apply to more than one kind of music lessons. The groups assigned to no lessons and the drama lesson groups were treated as control groups. Besides looking at intellectual changes, the researchers also evaluated whether the lessons effected social skills development.
The children were given IQ tests and evaluated in academic and social skills before and after the series of lessons began, to determine if there was a change. Increases in IQ and academic performance were taken to indicate an increase in intellectual ability.
After one year of lessons, the children in both the music lesson groups showed the greatest gains in IQ. The increases were across the board of IQ subsets and academic areas tested. The groups that took drama lessons also showed an increase in intellect as compared to the control group. Interestingly, the children in the drama group also showed an improvement in social skills, while the children taking music lessons did not show this improvement.
That all the groups taking some kind of art lesson showed improvements in intellectual ability tells us that parents are doing the right thing by sending their children to some kind of art or music lesson.
The study provides a big boost for music lessons but might suggest that art lessons of other kinds are also valuable. This research study suggests a follow-up to measure whether sports activities or other after school activities also provide a boost, and in what areas, or whether it is the arts in particular that produce this benefit. Also, future researchers might look at which arts or activities might provide the best all-around benefit or the biggest boost. Is violin better that piano, or does the instrument not matter, only the study of music? Are the benefits of classical music greater than, say, blues or country? Further studies may tell us. Either way, this study lends support music in schools.
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