xylophone baby

Is there anything more adorable than a chubby-cheeked baby bouncing to a beat or banging away at a little rainbow xylophone, or even better, a circle of chubby-cheeked babies drooling happily while their caregivers belt out "Five Little Ducks" with wild abandon? The answer is no.

But it turns out that singing or playing music with your baby is a lot more than just adorable: a new study from the University of Washington's Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences found that exposing infants to music is critical for brain development by improving infants' abilities to process new speech sounds.

"Our study is the first in young babies to suggest that experiencing a rhythmic pattern in music can also improve the ability to detect and make predictions about rhythmic patterns in speech," said lead author Christina Zhao, a postdoctoral researcher at I-LABS.

"This means that early, engaging musical experiences can have a more global effect on cognitive skills," Zhao said.

It turns out that speech and language both have strong rhythmic patterns, and that teaching babies musical rhythms helped them pick up speech rhythms. But it isn't just limited to speech acquisition, the study says.

"Infants experience a complex world in which sounds, lights and sensations vary constantly," said the study's co-author Patricia Kuhl.

"The baby's job is to recognize the patterns of activity and predict what's going to happen next. Pattern perception is an important cognitive skill, and improving that ability early may have long-lasting effects on learning."

At a time when music programs are viewed as frivolous and often the first to go in school budget cuts, research on the link between music and learning is an important reminder that learning is more complex than memorizing answers to test questions or sitting at a desk.

"This research reminds us that the effects of engaging in music go beyond music itself. Music experience has the potential to boost broader cognitive skills that enhance children's abilities to detect, expect and react quickly to patterns in the world, which is highly relevant in today's complex world."

image via Donnie Ray Jones