Music lessons spur emotional and behavioral growth in children, new study says
Music lessons spur emotional and behavioral growth in
children, new study says
By Amy Ellis Nutt January 7
Parents who have patiently sat through countless music
recitals and questioned their sanity at encouraging all those trumpet or violin
lessons need do so no longer. Even ear-splitting dissonance has an upside.
Music training not only helps children develop fine motor
skills, but aids emotional and behavioral maturation as well, according to a
new study, one of the largest to investigate the effects of playing an
instrument on brain development.
Using a database produced by the National Institutes of
Health Magnetic Resonance (MRI) Study of Normal Brain Development, researchers
at the University of Vermont College of Medicine analyzed the brain scans of
232 healthy children ages six to 18 specifically looking at brain development
in children who play a musical instrument. (The original study did not indicate
specific instruments.)
"What we found was the more a child trained on an
instrument," said James Hudziak, a professor of psychiatry at the
University of Vermont and director of the Vermont Center for Children, Youth
and Families, "it accelerated cortical organization in attention skill,
anxiety management and emotional control."
The cortex, or outer layer of brain, changes in thickness
as a child grows and develops. Previously, Hudziak and colleagues Matthew
Albaugh and Eileen Crehan found relationships between cortical thickening and
thinning in various areas of the brain responsible for depression, aggression
and attention problems. This research, announced last month in the Journal of
the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, was different.
"I wanted to look at positive things, what we
believe benefits child development," Hudziak said. "What I was
surprised by was the emotional regulatory regions. Everyone in our culture
knows if I lift 5-pound, 10-pound, 15-pound weights, my biceps will get bigger.
The same is true for the brain. We shouldn't be surprised we can train the
brain."
Because the study's participants were all mentally
healthy children, Hudziak thinks the positive effect of music training on those
who are not could be significant.
"A kid may still have ADHD," he said.
"It's the storm around it that improves."
Inspired by his own research, and having never learned to
play an instrument, the 56-year-old Hudziak decided to take viola lessons last
year.
"I had this passion for health promotion in
children, it seemed silly not to do it myself," he said.
Though music isn't his only health-related
extracurricular activity — Hudziak also engages in regular exercise and
meditation — he believes the viola lessons contribute to his overall wellness.
They have not, however, contributed much to his overall playing ability — at
least not yet. The sanguine psychiatrist had just one word for his viola
skills:
"Horrible."
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