Growing a Mind Through Music: Spatial-Temporal Reasoning

Photo by: Billy Alexander

I’m sure you’ve heard all the research about how studying music improves brain functions. Many scientists have studied the effects of music on the brain with some fascinating results.  Once such study took a look at spatial-temporal reasoning in children.  What is spatial-temporal reasoning & why do you care if your child improves it?  Two words: Math & Science.

Researchers found that children given piano lessons significantly improved in their spatial- temporal IQ scores (important for some types of mathematical reasoning) compared to children who received computer lessons, casual singing, or no lessons.

— Rauscher, F.H., Shaw, G.L., Levine, L.J., Wright, E.L., Dennis, W.R., and Newcomb, R. (1997) Music training causes long-term enhancement of preschool children’s spatial temporal reasoning. Neurological Research, 19, 1-8.

Spatial-Temporal reasoning is, at it’s most basic, your brain’s ability to take objects & mentally manipulate them over a period of time.  Doing puzzles works your spatial-temporal reasoning.  Your child sees a piece and mentally rotates it to decide if it’s the one they need.  They can tell, simply by looking at it, whether or not it’s the one that will fit.  This would appear to be a non-musical brain task, and yet, those children who took lessons on the piano showed improvement.  Another sign that music works a significant part of the brain – not just the parts we would assume are for music.

Give your child a leg up.  Let them play music.  Grow their minds.

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