Introduction
Babies are the marvel of God. They are born learning readily inside the womb of the mother. Brain develops rapidly during the early years of child’s life. Researches tells us that the baby’s and child’s brain can be stimulated through simple acts such as singing songs, lullaby, talking about the surrounding environment, colors and textures, holding and giving them love and affection and reading to them. These and other simple acts effects the brain development producing trillions of neural connections in the brain.
The brain research is a complex process but it transmits the message that babies are born learning. The recent discoveries in the field of neuroscience has provided new information and opened new ways for further research in this field. The latest technology like PET Scans, MRI has facilitated the research in the field of neuroscience(Brain development)
The paper focuses on the effects of music on the child’s brain development and raise in the IQ. The paper will proceed in the favor of this thesis statement. Music and music related things have effect on the intellectual development of the child and raise IQ level.
The brain develops rapidly in the prenatal stage and the process continues after the birth. The cell development in the brain virtually completes after the birth of the child, but the brain connections, neural pathways keep on developing after birth and in early childhood rapidly and progressively. Brain development is not solely determined by the genetics. The researches support the fact that the activity, experience, stimulation and attachment contributes towards brain development (Brain development). The brain development in early childhood is largely effected and determined by the surrounding environment. It determines how the development of the brain and Central nervous system will take place. Environment not only determines the formation of number of cells and neural connections but it also specify the ways in which these connections will be wired together.
The process of brain which eliminates the excess neurons and synapses from the immature brain continues till adolescence. These are the most dramatic early years in the process of brain development of child, which is formed by the child’s sensory experiences of the outside world, to a large extent (UNICEF).
At the time of birth, the brain of the baby is virtually finished but remarkably unfinished. That means that the structure of the brain looks complete in its form but the 100 billion of neurons have not yet developed their connections. The neurons that control the biological functions like breathing, heartbeat etc. has been programed but a large number of them are not yet programed and waiting for the outside experiences and stimulations to influence and stimulate them for working. These connections are formed through sensory experiences such as smelling, feeling, hearing, tasting. The key early tasks of the brain are to form and reinforce the formation of these connections. The brain of the child develops twice as more synapses as compared to the adult’s brain, in early childhood. These synapse connections are reinforced through experience. They are eliminated if not used repeatedly. So the surrounding experience plays a significant role in wiring of the neurons inside the brain.
The development of brain takes place in non-linear fashion. There are some prime times for optimal development of the brain. At some particular times, negative experiences and lack of proper stimulation place more serious and sustaining effects on development of neural connections (Norrie & Mustard).
The impact of the early interactions also plays a decisive role on the nature and and extent of the capabilities during adulthood. The people’s ability to learn and to regulate their emotions is largely effected by the early care and nurture. The presence of warm, loving, and responsive caregiving is essential for the development of healthy brain.
Effect of music and music related things on child’s brain development and IQ
As mentioned above, the surrounding environment plays a significant role in development of brain connections. It has often been noted that from ancient times, some form of music has been used to soothe the babies, to give them sound sleep. Mothers or grandmother often sing lullaby to babies to help them fall asleep. Many researches have been conducted to study the effects of music on the development of child’s brain.
In the 19th century, it was believed that the music has an impact on the size of the brain. The research on the childhood brain development has been going on for many decades but in past few years the invention of new technologies like MRI has allowed us to take a peek at the living system of brain. This has given a way to the researchers to study the effect of music on the brain development and activity (Kingsbury). Many studies have been conducted to find the link between music and improvement in the abilities of the brain like spatial reasoning, mathematics, memory, etc
In one of a study conducted at McMaster University, by Institute of the Music and mind, the results discovered that early musical training is beneficial for the children even before they can walk or talk. The subjects of the study were the group of babies along with their parents who participated in the one of the two types of musical classes for six months. The results verify the findings that the one-year old babies who took part in interactive music classes along with their parents showed better communication like pointing at the far off object, waving good bye, smiled more often, were easy to soothe, were less distressed when in unfamiliar settings and showed earlier and better brain responses to the music. According to Laurel Trainor, director of the institute of Music and Mind at McMaster University, Many past studies of musical training have focused on older children. Our results suggest that the infant brain might be particularly plastic with regard to musical exposure.” Music is the thing that everyone loves irrespective of age. And everyone can participate in simple interactive musical games along with children.
In another study, conducted on the infants between the ages of 5months- 2 years old , findings suggest that babies may have an inborn predisposition to respond to music in rhythm.in the research the infants were exposed to the variety of audio music such as classical, rhythmic beats and speech. The spontaneous movements they produced in response to the music were recorded through a video and 3-D motion capture technology and were compared with different stimuli. The research suggests that the beat of the music as compared to the other features of the music produced responses in babies and the better they were able to match their movements to the music the more they smiled (Zentner & Eerola).
But still the researchers are not sure that simply listening to the music from an early age effects the development of brain. Some of the researchers have observed these findings in their researches;
- Preschool children who had an early keyboard training performed better at the math reasoning tests than the group that had computer training.
- The college students who had some musical training before the age of 12 significantly learned more words from lists as compared to other students.
- Infants can make distinction in differences in pitch, melody and rhythm of music from quite an early age even they seem to recognize these in the womb.
- Preschoolers who took music and dance lessons were able to learn and remember body parts better than their other classmates (Kingsbury).
A study conducted to find the effects of the early childhood musical training on the development of adult brain, showed that the adults who have 4 to five years of musical training in childhood showed that brain responses to the complex sounds were enhanced. This made them more effective in pulling out the fundamental frequencies of the sound signals. The lowest frequencies in sound are the fundamental frequencies and these are crucial to the perception for speech and music. These allow recognition of the sounds in noisy and complex auditory atmospheres (Kraus). Thus the study suggests that the music lessons at early age may enhance and support the lifelong learning and listening processes.
Researchers have also found the evidence in a study that the young children who took part in the music lessons at the early age, show a different development of brain and an improvement in the memory functioning. The study was conducted on the musically trained children for one-year. After the course of one year, the musically trained children scored better on the memory test that was correlated with other skills of general intelligence such as verbal memory, literacy, mathematics etc (Oxford University Press).
Effect on the IQ
IQ refers to the Intelligence quotient. It is directly related to the development of brain and intelligence in an individual. The studies quoted above verify the fact the music contributes significantly towards the development of an IQ. The neural pathways which develop rapidly in the early childhood are facilitated by the music. Music stimulates the brain responses, which in turn sharpen the brain. Music is good for the cognitive development of the brain. Studies show the there is a link between the music and the improvement in the IQ level. This is attributed to the fact that the music develops such skills as attention, preservance, auditory skills, reading and memorization (Schellenberg). Areas of academic and life skills effected by music at early age are; ability to reason and language, spatial intelligence, coordination of motor movements, problem solving and thinking processes, conceptualization, communication skills, interest in other cultures, expression of oneself, increase in self-confidence and team work(Busiello).
CONCLUSION
Thus, it is proved that the music plays an important part in the development of the brain and increase in IQ. Music speaks a universal language, so the studies related to the effects of the music on the development of child’s IQ may have universal implications. It seems to benefit several different aspects of IQ development in children. It improves the effectiveness of the learning process. The musical education can help to develop the academic abilities as well as general intelligence of the children at an early age. The music education should be incorporated along with general education to enhance and stimulate the brain development which is closely related to the development of IQ in later age.
Works cited
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