A Beautiful Visual on The Impact of Music Education on Kids Cognitive Skills

Does music education really improve kids cognitive skills? The answer, in our view, is hard to determine and it requires a series of longitudinal studies across different cultural and ethnic groups. However, certain small-scale studies such as the ones cited in the visual below do provide a preliminary evidence in favour of the correlation between taking music lessons and improvement in certain cognitive skills.

For instance, in a study of 96 children aged 5-7 years old, those who received 7 months of supplementary music and arts classes earned higher mathematics scores than those with the schools’ typical music and arts training. In another collection of studies that involved a larger base of participants from high schools, researchers were able to identify a strong correlation between music instruction and higher reading test scores.

Always according to this infographic, music education was behind the blossoming of some great creative minds in the history of humankind (i.e Leonardo da Vinci, Issac Newton, Thomas Edison, Galileo Galilei and many mothers). More specifically, the visual cites six key areas positively impacted by music education: math skills, reading skills, memory, IQ, SAT scores, and planning. Read on to learn more about how music education improves human cognition.