Research indicates that Mozart can improve general aptitude, spatial intelligence, and hearing in children. These findings have led to a general acceptance of the Mozart effect among many parents.
Babies generally love music. They respond to music with excitement even before they learn to speak. As a parent, you must be doing everything to help improve your baby’s cognitive development and to amuse and calm down your baby when he or she throws a tantrum. While parenting can be hard, music is a useful tool to raise intelligent and happy kids. Many parents wonder whether the Mozart effect can improve the IQ level and other facets of brain development in their kids.
What is the Mozart effect?
The Mozart Effect is a term that researchers coined in 1993. It describes as to how the exposure of children to the music of Amadeus Mozart, a classical composer from the 18th century, can help them with cognitive development. The Mozart effect emphasizes that playing Mozart stimulates brain development, improves IQ, and spurs creativity in children. Playing Mozart to your baby even during pregnancy can help stimulate the growth of sophisticated neural trails that help the brain to process information. Babies who are exposed to Mozart early in life can learn to speak and hear more quickly and effectively.
Will Mozart make your baby smarter and more creative?
The Mozart effect first came to the limelight in 1993 when a study published in the journal Science found that children who listened to Mozart’s sonata for ten minutes showed significant improvement in spatial reasoning tests than those who listened to other relaxation sounds. As a result of this study, play schools in the US started to play Mozart to children. The findings of the study even led the southern state of Georgia to provide babies with free Mozart CDs. The same study also examined the long-term effects of Mozart on the brain of babies. A group of participants comprising 3 to 4-year-old babies were given keyboard lessons for six months. After the music lesson, the performance of the participants on a spatial reasoning test saw 30 percent improvement as compared to children who undertook computer training or no training at all for the same duration. This finding further underscored the importance of music in the cognitive development of children.
Another study investigated the effects of Mozart on rats. During the investigation, rats were exposed to Mozart before and after birth. The participating rats found their way to the end of a maze more quickly than the rats that were not exposed to Mozart.
The benefits of Mozart for babies
Mozart can be used to train the brain for specific kinds of thinking and reasoning in babies. After listening to classical music like Mozart, babies can do certain spatial tasks effectively and more quickly, like solving a jigsaw puzzle. But how does this happen? There exists a drastic resemblance between the classical music pathways in the brain and the neural trails we use for spatial reasoning. When we are exposed to classical music, especially Mozart, the spatial pathways in the brain are stimulated and prepared for use. This stimulation makes the mind more active, leading to more intelligence.
Music lesson and spatial reasoning
Music lesson, especially learning to play an instrument, leaves long-term effects on brain development and spatial reasoning. Many studies investigated the impact of piano lessons on children and their ability to solve puzzles. The findings suggest that music lessons help children perform spatial tasks more effectively and quickly. The reason why this happens is that playing instruments creates new mental pathways.
Why classical music?
Classical music is more complicated than music like country and rock. When babies as young as three months old listen to classical music like Mozart, they can pick out the sophisticated structure and even distinguish classical music medleys they have listened before. It is the complex structure of Mozart and other classical music that triggers the brain to make babies more intelligent and smart. This means that exposing babies to classical music leaves different effects on the brain than when they are exposed to other forms of music. While listening to any music is beneficial for children, classical music leaves more effective outcomes on the brain and mood of babies. The brain works as a result of the neural network and synapses. Neurons and synapses develop quickly after birth and wait to be stimulated to create connections. An active neural network forms only due to a specific stimulus. When all areas of the brain are primed, new neural networks are created, and the brain connections grow in compactness.
Classical music, like Mozart, is the best way to trigger the formation of neural connections. Studies have already found that a baby’s brain develops to 90 percent of its adult capacity during the initial two years following birth. Neural connections formed during this period affect the individual’s entire life.
How to help your baby?
There are many ways to help improve spatial reasoning and neural development in your baby. One of the best and most effective ways to accomplish this is to expose your baby to Mozart and other classical music. Letting your baby play with instruments and enrolling him or her in music lessons can go a long way toward achieving this goal. You can use soft lullabies and soft Mozart as background music to relax your baby and help him sleep. It can not only spur mental development but also improve the quality of sleep for your little one. Soft Mozart relaxes the nervous system and supports healthy psychological functioning.
– Rose Bogossian (httpss://stagemusiccenter.com/music-school-blog-winchester-ma/2019/8/17/babies-and-mozart#:~:text=The%20Mozart%20effect%20emphasizes%20that,the%20brain%20to%20process%20information.)
