Music, Children and Bilingualism

As children, everyone's parents try to put them in every after school activity posibile to make sure that the children are engaged and have their brains active. Some kids play sports while others learn an instrument. Research through the 80s onwards has shown that playing an instrument benefits the brain in a wide variety of ways. This ranges from language, memory and aiding with mental illness. One of the articles we were tasked in reading was “Listening to the Brainstem: Musicianship Enhances Intelligibility of Subcortical Representations for Speech” by Dr. Weiss and Dr. Bidelman. The main idea of the article was to examine the intelligibility of auditory playbacks of brainstem potentials. They found that behavioral classification of sonifications was faster and more categorical when they evaluated an individual with extensive musical training versus your average joe. The main takeaway was that this research could be used in early detention of speech-language impairments due to neurodegenerative disorders.

So musical training is key in helping us identify future neurodegenerative disorders, aids with memory, language etc. This is where Dr. Habibi from USC comes in with her research. She wanted to know how important it would be if a child would be put in musical training as young as five years old. So far her research has indicated that musical training is beneficial for children's brains by strengthening networks that process sound, language and communication as well as engaging areas that are responsible for decision making. Dr. Habibi wants to improve the effectiveness of music based interventions and how it can aid a wide variety of people. She will also be conducting research on children learning music that only speak one language compared to children that are bilingual. The idea is to see how bilingualism and music training can boost executive function skills in children and later on adults. 

Everyone hears how music training is good for the brain. Dr. Weiss and Dr. Bidelman shows that individuals with music training have better classification of sonifications than someone that did not have any musical training. On the other hand, Dr. Habibi is conducting research with children who are either bilingual and non-billegual to see how music training will impact their executive functions in the future. In her research she is comparing children that have no musical training (control) to her two other groups of children. She believes that musical training will be key in aiding children going into their middle school years since it appears musical training aids in emotion processing. Research by Weiss, Bidelman and Habibi all show that musical training has many benefits and not only aid individuals and children but can also aid them down the line as adults.

References:

Gersema, Emily. “USC Research Reinforces Music's Impact on the Developing Brain.” USC News, 6 Dec. 2019, news.usc.edu/163295/musical-training-brain-development-usc-research-nih-grant/.

Listening to the Brainstem: Musicianship Enhances ... www.jneurosci.org/content/35/4/1687.