Music and Thinking Skills

When you become an expert in a certain area of learning, the areas in your brain that deal with this knowledge will actually physically grow. Could it be that we can grow our brains with music since it affects all areas of the brain?

A study completed in 2003 by Gaser and Schlaug compared the brains of professional musicians who practised for at least one hour per day to that of amateur musicians and non-musicians. It was found that the cortex was larger in the musicians, as well as the brain size, as they had more grey matter. Of significance was that the motor regions of the brain, as well as the anterior superior parietal areas and the inferior temporal areas, were significantly smaller in non-musicians.

A study carried out by Luo et al. in 2012 showed that musicians had an increased functional connectivity in motor and multi-sensory areas of the brain, which proved that musicians were able to connect different parts of the brain more efficiently than non-musicians, and that their brains were actually more connected as a whole.

How can I apply this with the children in my care?

Another study, conducted by Knudsen in 2004, showed that brain plasticity is affected by how much a person actively engages in music training at a very early age – this was termed the 'sensitive period'. This sensitive period between the ages of three and four demonstrated that this was when the brain was growing at its most rapid pace, and that the neural circuits were particularly malleable, which meant that they could change easily and quickly.

During this time of development, the neural networks in the brain are laid out, and all learning during this sensitive period will cause alterations in the brain. But here is the interesting part: they found it was the experiences to which a child was subjected to within a rich environment that could actually prolong this so-called sensitive period.

This would mean that, by exposing children to music earlier on, you could prolong their ability to learn in all areas and help with brain plasticity. It also means that you could be enabling higher competencies in the children in your care as well as giving them lifelong skills.