Learning music enhances language, reading skills of disadvantaged kids

A new study has demonstrated that reading and language skills of disadvantaged children can be enhanced by learning to play a musical instrument or to sing.

The research conducted at the American Psychological Association's 122nd Annual Convention highlight the role learning music can have on the brains of youth in impoverished areas.

Nina Kraus, PhD, a neurobiologist at Northwestern University said that research had shown that there were differences in the brains of children raised in insolvent environments that affect their ability to learn.

Kraus said that while more rich students did better in school than children from lower income backgrounds, they were finding that musical training could alter the nervous system to create a better learner and help offset this academic gap.

Kraus's lab also found that, after two years, neural responses to sound in adolescent music students were faster and more precise than in students in another type of enrichment class.