Music education can improve grammar skills

Children were analysed on grammatical accuracy such as competence in using past tense

NEW YORK: Children who are better at distinguishing rhythm also fare better in grammar skills, says a new research, opening the possibility of using music education to improve grammar skills.

“Children who are better at detecting variations in music timing are also better at detecting variations in speech and therefore have an advantage in learning language,” reported lead author of the study Reyna Gordon from the Vanderbilt Kennedy Center, Tennessee in the US.

“Those of us in the field of music cognition, we know  — it does have a unique role in brain development,” Gordon added. Gordon studied 25 six-year-olds, first testing them with a standardised test of music aptitude. To measure the children’s grammar skills, they were shown a variety of photographs and asked questions about them.

They were measured on the grammatical accuracy of their answers, such as competence in using the past tense. Though the grammatical and musical tests were quite different, Gordon found that children who did well in one kind tended to do well in the other, regardless of IQ, music experience and socio-economic status. The study appeared online in the journal Developmental Science.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 10^th, 2014.

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