For Parents: Piano Lessons Bolster A Child's Success and Intelligence!
Published: Jul 2, 2014 | Category: For Parents
For Parents: Piano Lessons Bolster Children’s Success and Intelligence
“Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds that you plant.” Robert Louis Stevenson
A good education enables the future success of your child. As a parent reading this, you are certainly open to ways to be supportive and involved in your child’s learning process. Did you know that piano lessons increase a child’s cognitive development -- no matter how “challenged” the learner? Piano Lessons, as a large body of neurological research proves, provide a significant and unique learning process that benefits every child’s capacity to excel in a range of academic topics: from Math and Science, to Reading.
Superseding the benefits of computer instruction, piano lessons provide the best educational program for improving a child’s intelligence. Neurological studies reveal that children who took piano lessons demonstrated a 34% higher increase in abstract reasoning skills. These skills are imperative in the learning of Math and Science (See, for example: UC Irvine, Neurological Research, 1997). According to such research, piano lessons excite the inherent brain patterns of children --activity of neurons, synapses, and axonal connections -- in such a way as to benefit a child’s facility for critical thinking and complex reasoning.
Importantly, piano lessons –at any age— are proven to positively effect improved cognitive abilities, though the results were most dramatic in children who began lessons in their early, formative years. Preschoolers who received piano lessons gained improvements in “spatial reasoning” (mazes, drawing geometric figures, etc.) compared to those who did not. Piano lessons also prove to be the most beneficial educational program to excel spatial reasoning in middle-school aged children. Amazingly, neurological studies revealed that spatial-temporal reasoning in post-secondary students with previous musical training was bolstered merely by listening to music!
Strong links also exist between piano lessons and improved Reading skills. For example, a study conducted in both Japan and the U.S implemented a two-year group piano lesson program in school for students of various ages. The results, which compared test scores before and after participation in the piano program, revealed higher reading skills -- and significantly higher SAT scores, notably in the language and math portions of the exam!
Your child will reap the outstanding benefits of your investment in his or her piano lessons: enhanced levels of concentration, coordination, and confidence – key qualities for success in any field! Moreover, piano lessons may instill a life-long appreciation of music and the arts, and provide a pathway to finding one’s "inner voice” – as self-expression. For additional benefits gained by piano lessons, please see links on the studio Fcebook page, on the Resources page; or click on the following link: http://www.therecord.com/shopping-story/4643262-four-academic-benefits-of-music-lessons/?; as well as to a blog in Clavier Magazine: http://www.claviercompanion.com/blog/125-piano-lessons-are-good-for-you; Gordon Shaw and Frances Rauscher, “Your Child’s Brain,” Newsweek February 19, 1996; Neurological Magazine, 1997.