Music lessons enhance executive functions in 6- to 7-year-old children

Difference in Executive Functions Development Level between Two Groups: Preschool Children Who Took Extra Music Classes in Art Schools and Children Who Took Only General Music and Dance Classes Offered by Preschools

“…This research work revealed that children who took regular extra music classes had a higher level of inhibitory control. This outcome is consistent with the majority of the results of correlation studies and interventional studies that demonstrated that music classes, indeed, improved children's inhibitory control [13,[17][18][19][20]23,29]. With this being said, there are a few experimental works that did not register any influence of music classes on this parameter [30,31].…”

“…The absence of such an effect appearing in these research works might be explained by the insufficient continuance of music classes [29]. In addition, these studies included children with a very wide age range, and they were older than senior preschoolers (6-9 years old in the D' Souza et al [29] study; 6-14 years old in the work by Alema' n et al [30]). Therefore, one could assume that the average age of the participants was already beyond that sensitive age for the intensive development of inhibitory control [29].…”

“…With this being said, there are a few experimental works that did not register any influence of music classes on this parameter [30,31]. The absence of such an effect appearing in these research works might be explained by the insufficient continuance of music classes [29]. In addition, these studies included children with a very wide age range, and they were older than senior preschoolers (6-9 years old in the D' Souza et al [29] study; 6-14 years old in the work by Alema' n et al [30]).…”

“…In addition, these studies included children with a very wide age range, and they were older than senior preschoolers (6-9 years old in the D' Souza et al [29] study; 6-14 years old in the work by Alema' n et al [30]). Therefore, one could assume that the average age of the participants was already beyond that sensitive age for the intensive development of inhibitory control [29]. This is why short-term music classes (3 months) did not really affect the level of this EF component.…”

Please don’t stop the music: A meta-analysis of the cognitive and academic benefits of instrumental musical training in childhood and adolescence

“…Only a small number of experimental studies comply with basic methodological standards, such as randomization, the inclusion of an active control group, and blinding of the assessment, and, in practice, most of them involve short interventions (1-1.5 years long) and relatively small samples (≈ 25 participants per group), with the subsequent lack of statistical power to detect small-to-medium effect sizes 1 . Under those conditions, it is perhaps unsurprising that the results have been inconsistent across studies, with some studies providing evidence of a positive impact of instrumental learning (Frischen et al, 2021;James et al, 2020;Schellenberg, 2004), while other studies have shown null effects (D 'Souza & Wiseheart, 2018;Haywood et al, 2015). This is an ideal context for the application of a meta-analysis, as it allows a quantitative review of the literature and enables drawing firmer conclusions given an increased statistical power.…”