Thought Leaders: Does Music Improve Child Brain Development?

Does music improve child brain development?
Interview conducted by April CashinGarbutt, MA (Editor) Oct 13 2016
Dr. Assal Habibi
THOUGHT LEADERS SERIES
...insight from the world’s leading experts
An interview with Dr Assal Habibi conducted by April CashinGarbutt, MA
(Cantab)
Can you please give an overview of your
recent fiveyear study? What techniques did
you use to monitor changes in the childrens’
brains?
We are a research group at the Brain and Creativity Institute at University of
Southern California. In 2012, we began a fiveyear longitudinal study in
collaboration with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and their Youth Orchestra
program at the Heart of Los Angeles (YOLA at HOLA).
Our broad goal in this project was to investigate the impact of groupbased
music training on brain, cognitive, social and emotional development of
children.
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We enrolled three groups of children between ages 67: the first group were
part of the free communitybased music program at YOLA at HOLA; a
program that was inspired by the El Sistema method, one that LA
Philharmonic music director Gustavo Dudamel had been trained with in
Venezuela.
The second group of children were about to begin a sports training program
with a community based soccer program and were not engaged in music
training.
And the third group of children were from public schools and community
centres in the same areas of Los Angeles.
All three groups of children were from equally underserved and ethnic
minority communities of Los Angeles.
We use neuroimaging (MRI/fMRI), neurophysiological (EEG) and psychological
methods that are adopted for children to measure their brain, cognitive and
social development.
Each year, we meet every participant and their families at our institute for a
testing period over the course of 23 days. During this visit, we test each
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child separately and also conduct detailed interviews with their families.
What did your results show with regards to
the impact of music instruction on children’s
social, emotional and cognitive development?
At the onset of the study and prior to any training, we demonstrated that the
children who were about to start music training were not different from the
children in the other two groups in terms of cognitive, language, socio
emotional or brain development.
Recently we published the interim results of this ongoing study in an article in
the Journal of Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience. We reported that after
two years, the group of children who had undergone musical training were
better at processing auditory information including pitch perception and
discrimination.
We also observed that musically trained children had an accelerated
maturation of the brain’s auditory pathway; in other words, they showed
faster time course for reaching adult level of maturation in auditory areas of
the brain.
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How do the study results compare to previous
findings?
These preliminary results, support previous findings and suggest that music
training during childhood, even for a period as brief as two years, can
accelerate brain development and sound processing.
We believe, as it has been shown in other studies that this may benefit
language acquisition, speech perception, reading readiness and consequently
the intellectual development of children, all of which tend to be slower in
children from underprivileged communities.
How long will the study be continuing for and
what further insights do you hope to gain?
The current study is in its final stage of data collection; however we hope to
continue to follow our participants to assess whether benefits of music
training can serve as protective mechanisms during adolescents where
cognitive and emotional control is more vulnerable and individuals tend to
make more risky decisions.
Based on the current evidence, should parents and schools be encouraged to
increase music education for children, or is further evidence needed first?
We hope that the findings from this study lead to a better understanding of
the benefits of musical training and provide support for public policies that
aim at making music education more accessible in particular in underserved
communities.
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How early is it thought that music can impact
a child’s development? Is it likely that music
can be beneficial to babies in the womb?
This is not specifically my line of expertise but there are excellent studies
showing benefits of music exposure for babies and toddlers in early years of
development.
Where can readers find more information?
https://dornsife.usc.edu/bci/brainandmusic/
About Dr Assal Habibi
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Dr. Assal Habibi is a research scientist at the Brain
and Creativity Institute at University of Southern
California. Her research takes a broad perspective
on understating child development.
She is interested in how biological dispositions and
environment interact and how early childhood
learning experiences shape the development of
cognitive, emotional and social abilities.
She is an expert in the use of electrophysiological
and neuroimaging methods to investigate human brain function and her
research have been published in several peer reviewed journals.
Dr. Habibi completed her doctoral work at the UC Irvine Department of
Cognitive Science, focusing on investigating the effects of long term musical
training on pitch and rhythm processing by assessing brain activity during
music listening in adult musicians, nonmusicians and patients with auditory
impairments.
Currently, along with Drs. Antonio and Hanna Damasio, she is the lead
investigator of a 5year longitudinal study investigating the effects of early
childhood music training on the development of brain function and structure
as well as cognitive, emotional, and social development.
Dr. Habibi is a classically trained pianist, and has many years of musical
teaching experience with children which have always been a personal passion.
Written by
April CashinGarbutt
April graduated with a firstclass honours degree in Natural Sciences from
Pembroke College, University of Cambridge. During her time as EditorinChief,
NewsMedical (20122017), she kickstarted the content production process and
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helped to grow the website readership to over 60 million visitors per year. Through
interviewing global thought leaders in medicine and life sciences, including Nobel
laureates, April developed a passion for neuroscience and now works at the
Sainsbury Wellcome Centre for Neural Circuits and Behaviour, located within UCL.
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