The similarities between music and language development are strong. However, there have been many unanswered questions:
- Does music education improve language acquisition, reading ability and/or overall academic ability?
- What about the nature-nurture debate? Are some musical children better students because their brains were stronger to begin with? Maybe their gifted brains convinced them to pick music in the first place.
- Does it matter if a child pursues music versus a non-sound activity? Perhaps a rigorous commitment to any activity yields similar improvement.
We now have the science to answer these questions and others. Our research is showing that music education has a profound effect on children’s academic ability – and that includes children from a variety of socioeconomic backgrounds.