Music 'boosts kids’ brain development'

Researchers in the Kraus lab provided the first concrete evidence that playing a musical instrument significantly enhances the brainstem’s sensitivity to speech sounds. File Photo: CH Vijaya Bhaskar

Music training can shape a growing child’s brain, says a new research.

At the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting, a Northwestern University neuroscientist had argued that music training has profound effects that shape the sensory system and should be a mainstay of K-12 education.

“Playing an instrument may help youngsters better process speech in noisy classrooms and more accurately interpret the nuances of language that are conveyed by subtle changes in the human voice,” says Nina Kraus, Hugh Knowles Professor of Neurobiology, Physiology and Communication Sciences at Northwestern University.

“Cash-strapped school districts are making a mistake when they cut music from the K-12 curriculum,” says Kraus, director of the Auditory Neuroscience Laboratory in Northwestern’s School of Communication.

Kraus suggested that music education can be an effective strategy in helping typically developing children as well as children with developmental dyslexia or autism more accurately encode speech.

“People’s hearing systems are fine-tuned by the experiences they’ve had with sound throughout their lives,” says Kraus. “Music training is not only beneficial for processing music stimuli. We’ve found that years of music training may also improve how sounds are processed for language and emotion.” Kraus added. Researchers in the Kraus lab provided the first concrete evidence that playing a musical instrument significantly enhances the brainstem’s sensitivity to speech sounds.