- Music's Impact: Birth to
Preschool
- from "Music Advocacy Action Kit," provided
by The Selmer Company for School Reform sessions
presented by Tim Lautzenheiser and Michael Kumer at
the 1999 Midwest Band and Orchestra Clinic in Chicago
-
- * Researchers at Keele University have reported that
babies
- in the womb can hear and remember music as early as 20
- weeks gestation. Babies showed signs of recognizing songs
- played to them in utero during the mothers' 20th-21st
- weeks of pregnancy.
- - Nigel Hawkes, "Foetus Has an Ear for Music at 20
Weeks,"
- The London Times, March 30, 1998.
-
- * An Eastman research project found dramatic increases in
- language development and memory skills between those
- children exposed to music and literature in utero and
their
- siblings who were not.
- - Donald J. Shetler, "The Inquiry into Prenatal
Musical
- Experience: A Report of the Eastman Project
1980-1987."
- In "Music and Child Development" edited by Frank
Wilson
- and Franz Roehmann, (St. Louis, Missouri: MMB
Music,
- Inc., 1990) 50.
-
- * In a study of fifty-two premature babies and newborns
- with low birth weight at the Tallahassee Memorial
- Regional Medical Center in Tallahassee, Florida, a
- researcher reported that playing sixty-minute tapes of
vocal
- music, including lullabies and children's songs, reduced
- hospital stay an average of five days. Mean weight loss
of
- babies was also about 50 percent lower for the group of
- babies listening to music, formula intake was less, and
- stress levels were reduced.
- - Janet Caine, "The Effects of Music on the Selected
Stress
- Behaviors, Weight, Caloric and Formula Intake, and
- Length of Hospital Stay of Premature and Low Birth
- Weight Neonates in a Newborn Intensive Care Unit,"
- Journal of Music Therapy 28 (1991): 180-192.
-
- * At Helen Keller Hospital in Alabama, an experiment
- with newborns found that 94 percent of crying babies
- immediately fell asleep without a bottle or pacifier when
- exposed to lullaby music.
- - Lance W. Brunner, "Testimonies Old and New," in
- "Music and Miracles," ed. Campbell, pp. 82-84, Caine,
"The
- Effects of Music," 180-192.
-
- * On the basis of observations and experiments with
- newborns, neuroscientists now know that infants are born
- with neural mechanisms devoted exclusively to music.
- Studies show that early and ongoing musical training
- helps organize and develop children's brains.
- - Susan Black, "The Musical Mind," The American
School
- Board Journal, January 1997.
-
- * A researcher at the University of California at Irvine
has
- found that music and language are inseparably linked as a
- single system in the brain. This system is acquired in
the
- earliest stages of infancy and continues as the child
- processes the sounds of human voices around him.
- - Robert Garfias, "Thoughts on the Processes of
Language
- and Music Acquisition." In "Music and Child
- Development" edited by Frank Wilson and Franz
- Roehmann, (St. Louis, Missouri: MMB Music, Inc.,
1990)
- 100.
-
- * Music--specifically song--is one of the best training
- grounds for babies learning to recognize the tones that
add
- up to spoken language.
- - Sandra Trehub, University of Toronto, 1997.
-
- * A research project conducted with three-year-olds in a
- Los Angeles preschool tested children's spatial reasoning
- after eight months of keyboard and singing lessons. The
- children who had received the music training increased
- their spatial-temporal reasoning by 46 percent as
compared
- to a 6 percent increase in the control group that
received
- no training.
- - Frances Rauscher, Gordon Shaw, Linda Levine,
Eric
- Wright, Wendy Dennis, and Robert Newcomb, "Music
- Training Causes Long-term Enhancement of Preschool
- Children's Spatial-Temporal Reasoning."
Neurological
- Research, vol. 19, February 1997.
-
- * Researchers studying the link between music and
- intelligence divided preschool children into four groups:
- one group received private piano lessons, the second had
- private computer training, while the remaining children
- were divided among a singing-only group and a no-lesson
- group. After six months of training, the groups were
tested.
- Those in the piano group had the most dramatic
- improvement in spatial-temporal reasoning: their scores
- increased by 34 percent.
- - Amy Graziano, Gordon Shaw, and Eric Wright.
"Music
- Training Enhances Spatial-Temporal Reasoning in
- Young Children: Towards Educational Experiments."
- Early Childhood Connections, Summer 1997.
-
- * Dr. Jean Houston of the Foundation for Mind Research
- believes that the brains of children not exposed to music
- arts education are actually being damaged because these
- non-verbal modalities help them with skills such as
- reading, writing, and math.
- - Sharlene Habermeyer, "Good Music, Brighter
Children."
- (California: Prima Publishing, 1999).
-
- * Research shows that when a child listens to classical
- music the right hemisphere of the brain is activated, but
- when a child studies a musical instrument both left and
- right hemispheres of the brain "light up." Significantly,
- the areas that become activated are the same areas that
are
- involved in analytical and mathematical thinking.
- - Dee Dickinson, "Music and the Mind."
(Seattle: New Horizons for Learning, 1993).
-
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