How the Music Center Enhances Children's Development

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Children develop musical skills and appreciation as they interact in the music center. While participating in music activities, children are also enhancing physical, language, social-emotional, and cognitive development. In today’s world of high-stakes tests, many are using music’s enhancement of cognitive development as a rationale for including music in the curriculum. However, as stated by Hetland and Winner (2001), “The arts are a fundamentally important part of culture, and an education without them is an impoverished education leading to an impoverished society. Studying the arts should not have to be justified in terms of anything else. The arts are as important as the sciences: they are time-honored ways of learning, knowing, and expressing” (p. 5).

Music Skills and Appreciation

Even without adult intervention, children are natural, instinctive music makers. However, when we expose children to music through singing and playing instruments, they become more proficient and develop musical skills earlier (Kelley & Sutton-Smith, 1987).

When young children listen repeatedly to a style of music, they learn to prefer that music and these preferences become lifelong (Flohr, 2004; Peery & Peery, 1986). It is important, therefore, to expose children to music that broadens their repertoire. Learning to appreciate music from another culture or time period can also open the door to further interest and learning.

Cognitive Development

Many studies have found a correlation between music abilities and academic achievement (Shore & Strasser, 2006). Music can aid in all areas of the child’s development. A study of 106 preschool children found that those exposed to a systematic and integrated music program significantly increased their motor, cognitive, language, and social-emotional scores as assessed by the Preschool Evaluation Scale (McCarney, 1992).

Singing relevant songs can help children to learn science, math, and language concepts (Miche, 2002). History and geography can also be enhanced by examining the music of the time period or geographic area. Music can also assist with memorization. When items to be memorized are set to music, children remember them more readily (Sawyers & Hutson-Brandhagen, 2004).

Music is organized mathematically; music and math support one another (Sawyers & Hutson-Brandhagen, 2004, p. 46). As children hear and move to a beat or read music, they use one-to-one correspondence skills. As they recall a series of sounds or actions (head, shoulders, knees and toes) they gain seriation skills.

There is also a strong relationship between music and spatial-temporal intelligence (the ability to visualize and mentally manipulate spatial patterns). A review of nineteen studies found this relationship was even stronger if children also learned music notation (Hetland & Winner, 2001). Other studies support these findings. When researchers assigned preschool children to computer lessons, piano lessons, singing lessons, or no lessons, those who received piano lessons showed a 34% increase in spatial-temporal intelligence while there was no change in children in the other groups (Shaw, 2003). Researchers found similar results in elementary age children (Schellenberg, 2004).