Study reveals that children who play musical instruments over several years exhibit stronger vocabulary skills than their non-musical peers. Music training might serve as a buffer against the academic disadvantages often associated with living in lower-income neighborhoods.
Music training may buffer children against the academic toll of poverty
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>A recent analysis of a major developmental dataset reveals that children who play musical instruments over several years exhibit stronger vocabulary skills than their non-musical peers. The findings indicate that music training might serve as a buffer against the academic disadvantages often associated with living in lower-income neighborhoods. This research [appeared](https://nyaspubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/nyas.70086) in the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences.
>Educators and neuroscientists have debated the extent to which artistic training impacts the brain for decades. Playing an instrument is a demanding activity that requires a student to integrate auditory perception with fine motor control. It forces the brain to monitor pitch and rhythm while maintaining focus for extended periods.
>Researchers suspect that these rigorous mental demands strengthen general cognitive abilities. The theory posits that the discipline required for music transfers to other domains, such as language processing and attention regulation.
>Assal Habibi, an associate professor of psychology at the University of Southern California, led the investigation. Habibi and her colleagues at the Brain and Creativity Institute sought to determine if these cognitive benefits are consistent over time. They also wanted to understand if music training affects children differently depending on their socioeconomic environment. The team focused specifically on whether music could act as an equalizer for children facing economic adversity.
Families and schools who invest in their children’s education in music and other arts differ in many ways from families or schools who do not. This is probably the true cause of those observed differences.
I think children who are able to have the discipline and concentration to practice an instrument over a number of years probably already have more advanced abilities than their peers and that’s why they play instruments in the first place. The instrument playing is symptom of their high ability/intelligence, not a cause.
I think there’s a lack of distinction between correlation and causation here….
*when arts peofeams are well funded enough that said disadvantaged parents don’t have to shoulder the cost of renting an instrument
Kind of makes sense. Learning music requires literacy and helps to further develop it. The same goes for reading, acting, etc. I would imagine