According to the results of a recent study conducted in the United States, learning to play a musical instrument helps children's brain development . The study was published in August 2014 in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.
The research enrolled 232 children aged between 6 and 18, with the aim of assessing changes in cortical thickening in the brains of children who were learning to play a musical instrument . The study included several tests that the children underwent every two years, three times.
At the conclusion of the study, playing a musical instrument was associated with a more rapid cortical maturation, with positive results especially on motor function, inhibitory control, emotion processing, ability to be careful, working memory and ability to plan for the future.
Music, therefore, if introduced into the life of children helps them to express creativity and emotions, as well as to hone their mental qualities.
Even listening to music develops children's brains
The relationship between music and the brain has been the center of attention in the scientific world for years. According to numerous neurophysiological studies, listening to music acts on many brain areas, to the benefit of cognitive development, at all ages.
Even if the greatest advantages seem to occur when we move on to the study of music, simple listening is already a very valuable aid for the development of the child .
Music continues to exert its positive effects on the brain throughout life. Those who make music until late in life lose less brain mass as they age, as some studies have shown.
Music therefore offers a great opportunity to make the most of one's brain, as a child and for life.
Disabled children and music at school
How to introduce music into children's play
Children really enjoy playing with music. Any ideas for introducing music into children's play?
- Play simple instruments, such as tambourines and whistles. It can already be done with the very young, starting at 12 months.
- Build DIY musical instruments . For example fill plastic bottles with sand and hear what sound makes or blow into an empty bottle. They are creative and fun games, suitable for children over three years of age.
- Singing short and simple songs to your children. It is a suitable game from birth. We bet that, already around 18 months, the child used to listening to the adult who sings will begin, in turn, to sing? And you will naturally go from singing for children to singing with children.
- Listen to music with your children (and turn off the TV) when doing activities such as playing with buildings or drawing.
- Stimulate the natural propensity that children have to clap or move in rhythm when they listen to music.
- Educate them on listening to the sounds and noises of the world around them: the direction of the animals, the creaking of a door, the roar of the engine, the noise of the washing machine. Also the reflection on the sounds of one's own context is a very useful exercise, as well as a fun game.
At what age can you start a music course?
There are already multidisciplinary activities carried out with the children of the kindergarten that educate them to listen to the sounds and bring music, for example, to the movement.
Around the age of 6-7, however, one can begin to think of introducing children to the study of a musical instrument .
