Can music enhance mental abilities in children?

At the end of the twentieth century, researchers found that classical music can enhance academic achievement. The next day, companies that produce toys and goods for children, offered for sale many different variations, promising for schoolchildren an increase in intelligence. This phenomenon was hurriedly dubbed "the effect of Mozart." Parents massively bought up the goods offered by calculating marketers and began to write down children to music schools.

Needless to say, the general education school does not lend itself to marketers' tricks. The Ministry of Education sees priority in increasing the student's progress in basic subjects (mathematics and mother tongue). This trend is typical for all developed countries in the world. Even physical culture is an order of magnitude higher in importance than music lessons. And then the parents realized that they were trapped. On the one hand, they were told that classical music enhances the child's intellectual abilities. But on the other hand, the number of hours devoted to music lessons at school has dramatically decreased. Who should I trust?

"The effect of Mozart" was a myth

The last nail in the coffin of the general educational musical education was scored by scientists from the University of Vienna, who in 2013 found out that the "Mozart effect" is a myth. Classical music can only have a short-term effect on the mind of a young musician and listener. Already 20 minutes after school, the student returns his cognitive skills to the original possibilities. And this means that the declared promise of advertisers is a strong exaggeration. Your child will receive good grades for the exam only if he diligently prepares for it. Listening to classical music can not help it.

New skills are necessary for the overall development of the child

However, do not rush to take documents from the music school. According to Robert Kapan, the executive director of one of Philadelphia's music schools, if you want to see long-term benefits, continue the studies. Any activity that helps kids to acquire new skills will be useful for intellectual and mental development. Well, group lessons can be compared with sports games. Imagine that you went out to play football in the yard, but forgot to call friends, would you be interested? No. Several new skills (dribbling, hit the ball) you can work out. But you do not improve the skills that the team play gives.

Which is better: listen or play a musical instrument?

We can draw explicit parallels with the group lessons of the music school. When children sing in chorus or perform a musical piece with an orchestra, they learn mutual understanding and enhance social adaptation. If we compare music lessons and listening to classical compositions, then an obvious leader emerges here too. Our today's expert claims that children who master musical instruments have a great advantage over those who only listen to musical compositions. A child who learns to read notes and tries to reproduce a melody develops both hemispheres of the brain with the help of fine motor skills of the hands. And the more complicated the studied work, the more useful it is.

Music lessons improve the work of the brain

Even if the student abandons the music, the skills obtained earlier provide a long-term effect. Children-musicians reduce the number of disciplinary offenses, the number of missed lessons in general subjects during the entire period of schooling. And this means that music develops in a small person discipline, which, in turn, helps to cope with the exam tests.

If a child entered a music school before the age of 6, he does show better results on standardized tests. Active music lessons in childhood improves the work of the brain. This becomes possible with an increase in the number of neural connections responsible for sound processing. We can not say that music makes children smarter, but we can say that this enriches the life of schoolchildren.