When babies first begin to verbalize, they often sound a little more like their singing than talking. Musical baby burble may have deeper roots than we realize. A new study has confirmed that verbal development is deeply tied to music and musical ability in the brain.
This overlap in the brain’s processing of language and instrumental music has big implications for helping people with speech problems. ”Music making is a multi-sensory experience, activating links to several parts of the brain.” Gottfried Schlaug, associate professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School told this years meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Stroke patients, and even children with developmental dyslexia and autism, may benefit from learning to sing what their brains simple can’t figure out how to speak.
Schlaug is having success helping people communicate by teaching otherwise non-verbal patients to sing for things they need. “If you have someone who is non-verbal and they can say they are hungry or thirsty or ask where the bathroom is, that’s an improvement.” He said of what he calls Melodic Intonation Therapy.
Music isn’t just important for brain development in the sick and disabled – normally developed children get huge benefits from musical training as well. Nina Kraus, director of the Auditory Neuroscience Laboratory at Northwestern University, reported yesterday that new studies make it clear that musical training “improves abilities important in daily life. Playing an instrument may help youngsters better process speech in noisy classrooms and more accurately interpret the nuances of language that are conveyed by subtle changes in the human voice.”
Music’s ties to mathematical development have already been established, now it’s becoming clear that “years of music training may also improve how sounds are processed for language and emotion,” according to Kraus.
So when that violin practice is grating on your last nerve, just remember, it’s for a very good cause.
