We parents try to set up our kids for success. That usually takes the form of homework help, immunizations, a 529 plan, regular health check-ups, prep for the SAT, and the like. However, did you know that investing in music lessons for your child now will set up his/her little brain for healthy aging 40 to 50 years in the future? Talk about proactive.
While this may be hard to believe, hear us out. According to extensive research compiled by Nina Kraus and Travis White-Schwoch in their article in Acoustics Australia entitled, Music training: lifelong investment to protect the brain from aging and hearing loss, “music training appears to be a powerful strategy to support meaningful interactions with sound, mitigating age-related decline in nervous system function.” They go on to explain that music lessons in youth are “associated with neurophysiological benefits for encoding speech that cascade to heightened auditory-cognitive skills across the lifespan.” In fact, older adults (ages 55-76) who had not even picked up an instrument in decades “had faster neural responses to consonants in speech than their peers—counteracting older adults’ hallmark age-related temporal processing deficit.”
So, while this all might sound like a lot to digest, the gist is simple. Music lessons for kids are a great way to set them up for healthy aging. And that’s the kind of success that never gets old.
